


You're The Wrong I Need

by hexterah



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Legacy of the Force Series - Aaron Allston & Troy Denning & Karen Traviss
Genre: Darth Caedus is a Scrublord, F/M, Gen, Sith AU, Sith Tenel Ka, this would never happen but I HAD TO
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-08 21:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8864029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexterah/pseuds/hexterah
Summary: When something happens to Allana and Caedus tracks down Tenel Ka to find out what's going on, the two end up on somewhat of a downward spiral in the process of finding her -- and possibly finding what was left of themselves that they had lost over time.





	1. Defenseless

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so let me preface this story with a whole(lolololololol) thing: **This would never ever happen.** Tenel Ka going Dark Side is something I could never see occurring. But I wanted to write so bad in general that all this mess came to me and I had to get it out - so even though it’s a giant mess, I’m happy cause _I EFFING WROTE SOMETHING!_ And it’s something long! 
> 
> When I started this story, me + writing was a thing hadn’t happened in a very long time. Then I hammered out this and Galaxy Rendezvous. Well, GR was finished first cause this one was crazy but both of them are complete now! I was just really excited that I wrote something again, especially the length of the two stories and how long it had been since I wrote _anything_. 
> 
> (Also, I’m known for stupidly and sadly abandoning long J/TK stories in the middle. See also: Hollow Souls, Halfway to the Heavens, Absolved and The First Time -- which is technically a Tenel Ka/Zekk story but still fits I’M SORRY ONE DAY I’LL TRY TO FINISH THEM D:)
> 
>  **NOTE:** I took Mara’s murder out of the equation and she’s still alive. I know he took the name Caedus after her death but we’ll pretend he took it before. Because… of reasons… I guess. SO THAT’S THAT. :D
> 
> As for the timeframe/line, it would split at some point in Fury (I believe) -- Caedus hasn’t kidnapped Allana yet and the last time he and Tenel Ka had visual contact was when she told him she didn’t want to fire on him and basically said, “suck it scrublord, bye.”
> 
>  **In closing:** I just really wanted to write something _horrible and dirty_. Like really horrible. Here it is!
> 
> (P.S. It’s not required to read Galaxy Rendezvous before this, but there are definitely some callbacks to GR in this story -- both in some of the parallels that happen between the two stories and then stuff going on in a small scene or two.)
> 
> Written from April 13 - December 7, 2016.

It had taken a little less than six minutes. They had scaled the black basalt rocks, then the walls of the Fountain Palace -- something that the cliffside building was supposed to prevent anyone and anything from doing -- and there had been eight of them. They were all Hapan, dressed from head-to-toe in matte black and they each had an objective. Two would go get the girl, three would hold the Queen Mother, one would lock the main door of the chambers then destroy the control panel and the last two would find their way into the palace's security system and keep certain alarms from tripping. The last two already had their job done by the time they made it to the balcony of the royal chambers and pried the door open. 

The Queen Mother had already been out of her bed, sensing something outside, but the three who were supposed to hold her were faster than she was. And where was she going to run? She wouldn't leave her daughter. She did scream at the top of her lungs though, and she yelled at them, spit at them -- she _almost_ used her Force powers on them. One of the three assigned to her had planned for that though and pulled a needle out of a pouch at their side. Some concoction of a tranquilizer and ysalamiri blood. She couldn't fight back physically and she couldn't use the Force after that.

She had already grown drowsy by the time the two who were assigned to get the girl came out of the back hallway, one with a small, still body dressed in blue sleepwear in his arms. The Queen Mother remembered screaming, trying to tell them to stop, trying to shriek loud enough for someone to hear her. And she remembered watching her daughter's peaceful face disappearing over the railing of the balcony as the first one left her chambers to climb down. She remembered watching two more in some sort of goggles begin to vault over the railing and climb down and then she remembered nothing as one of them punched her and another let go of her as she fell to the floor.

The palace guards blew the door open and found the Queen Mother on the carpet near her bed, passed out, her cream-colored nightgown torn in places and a welt forming on her left bicep where the needle had stabbed her.

When she had woken up in the palace infirmary, she could only repeat in a hoarse whisper. "Get Allana. They have Allana, please. Find her. _Find her_."


	2. Realization

Tenel Ka was always one who took pride in doing things herself, accepting herself and _being_ herself. She always tried her hardest when there was a problem to solve, whether physical or mental and she had been like that from quite a young age. So how did Allana get taken? How did Allana get taken _right in front of her_?

She would never forget the look on her daughter's face as one of the intruders held her in his arms. It was a peaceful expression, like the little girl was merely sleeping.

There were eight of them, she counted. From what she gathered, saw and recalled, five were women and three were men. She told the guards everything she remembered; she told them multiple times. None of them talked, so she wasn't aware of any accents any of them might have had. The Queen Mother was fairly certain they were all Hapan though. The way they moved, the precision they displayed -- their _eyes_. They were Hapan. The more she thought of that night and the people who entered her private chambers and took her daughter, the angrier she grew. She knew that feeling wasn't healthy, but how could she let them do that? How could she have been so _defenseless_?

She went out to Reef Fortress Island the morning after the first full day Allana had been gone, accompanied only by two guards who stayed by the boat they had taken. Nodding calmly to them, she entered the fortress and let the main door shut behind her, tears falling from her eyes right when the light from the outside vanished behind her. It was her fault.

Stalking out to one of the interior courtyards, she peered around slowly, absently noting the familiar sights. The trees and plants still looked well, albeit extremely overgrown, and surprisingly the fountain in the center still worked. What she was looking for though, was the stone wall in the back, a mural painted on it that stretched from the floor up to the clear ceiling. Tenel Ka moved to stand in front of it, her right hand already around the smooth handle of the rancor tooth lightsaber that hung at her side. The mural ahead of her held painted portraits of past Queen Mothers and the face closest to where she stood was the reason she was in this exact courtyard. There were a number of flora-filled interior spaces in the fortress, but this was the one she wanted. The one she _needed_.

Tenel Ka was fairly certain her grandmother was behind this kidnapping. Jacen Solo had rendered her comatose after Allana was born due to the assassination attempt on the week-old baby’s life, but that didn't mean her most loyal supporters were going to quit, no. That was just going to drive them further, help their cause, _inspire them_. Without thinking, her lightsaber was on and slashing at the stone ahead of her, back and forth, swing after swing. The tears that ran down her cheeks stung the cut still scabbing over where her skin had split from the punch and that pain only served in pushing her harder. She wanted to scream but knew that would bring the guards in, so she just growled and mumbled under her breath while her turquoise blade chipped away at the painting of her grandmother. The only thing that stopped her was the strong hitch in her chest, a sob that brought her to her knees and forced her to drop her lightsaber so she could keep a palm on the ground.

She ended up collapsing on her side and staring almost upside-down at the courtyard for three hours, eyes glazed over and mind spinning. Her lightsaber was still on and was near her head when she fell to the ground and the blade had sizzled off the ends of a couple of her red-gold braids. She could smell the hair burning away, but she did nothing. It was her fault. She should have seen this coming -- _it was her fault_. Tenel Ka had been so worried about Jacen and his shift to the dark side that she dropped her guard with other matters.

_She had turned her back on him._

A few hyperspace jumps away, aboard the _Anakin Solo_ , stood the man who used to be the one closest to the Queen Mother in countless ways. He was speaking and in mid-sentence when he froze in place on the bridge, suddenly staring glassy-eyed at the deck. None of the officers around him dared to ask what was wrong, they just waited for him to mentally return and when he did, he dismissed them all, announcing he was going to be away from the Star Destroyer for an unknown amount of time before hurrying off of the bridge.


	3. Interrupted

Caedus had been planning on taking Allana from Tenel Ka; right out from under the Queen Mother’s nose. The plan had already been put into motion but he had halted it, only keeping pieces of his original idea -- he knew things would have to change due to the massive outburst he had felt in the usually smooth waters that made up the channels of the Force he kept open. The disguise he was originally going to use to get into the palace was still of use, and he silently approved of that fact as he walked the corridors of the Fountain Palace, smiling politely to guards and others that passed him by.

He could feel her sitting up above him in one of the spires that were sometimes used as guard posts during big events, and he followed her signature, stopping just short enough for the doors sensor not to catch him yet. Caedus took a moment to compose himself. The last time he had spoken to her, she had turned on him -- left him open to the _beasts_ that she called allies. When she had reached out through their bond to him, he could feel that she was already in the process of _mourning_ him. _How dare she._

Facing her right now was one of the last things he wanted to do, but that explosion he felt in his system -- in his mind, right where his place for her had been before she left his side -- that shock hadn’t sat well with him from the _exact_ _moment_ he felt it. He needed to know what it was and he knew she wouldn’t be taking any messages or correspondence from _him_.

Slowly stepping forward, the door to the outer deck of the spire opened and Caedus found himself looking at a wall about waist high with the clear blue Hapan sky beyond it. He listened for a moment, picked up a few words of a conversation that was happening a short distance away and then moved out onto the walkway. The ceiling that hung over the square deck of the spire blocked out the bright sunlight and he silently cursed himself for doing this in the middle of the day.

Something told him there was no time to waste though.

Sliding against the wall and peering around the corner, he saw the Queen Mother of Hapes sitting on the stone floor, hunched over, with the lower half of her back against the wall. She was speaking into a comlink, her voice scratchy and weak.

“Any updates?”

Caedus heard the response, much quieter with a tinny quality due to the comlink speaker. “Unfortunately, no. Your Majesty, we will contact you if _anything_ happens. You have our word.”

Dropping -- almost throwing -- the comlink on the ground beside her, Tenel Ka leaned back, pressing her head into the wall behind her and tightening the fist her hand had curled into without her even realizing it did. Through clenched teeth came a guttural growl that made Caedus’ eyebrows raise. They went even further skyward when she began to cry, a spell punctuated by angry exhales, sharp inhales and rough sobs. He took note of a black and yellow bruise on her jaw and her hair, which was half in braids and half not -- not by choice, it seemed. The ends of some almost looked like they had been burned off. Her eyes -- _her whole face_ was red.

Some part of him that he thought he killed and buried away forever, reacted to this sight and forced Caedus to move out into the open, into her line of vision, where he removed the cap that had been part of his disguise.

She began to look up at him. “ _Didn’t I say no interr--_ ” When her eyes met his, her words caught in her throat and she scrambled to her feet. “How did you get up here? What do you want?”

Caedus didn’t respond, he just watched her carefully. She began to inch to her left, in the direction of the only door back into the palace and he was quick to rush to her side to stop her. Tenel Ka stopped, not looking into his eyes anymore. Her head was turned away from him and Caedus figured she didn’t want him seeing her like this.

That amused him a bit, because he had seen her in so many ways for so many years before, emotionally and physically. He was inches away from her on her left side and it only took him two steady heartbeats to have his hands planted on either side of her, fingers curling around the railing. She leaned back, away from where he stood in front of her, away from _him_ , which caused her to lean back out over the wall. The wind at that height whipped her hair around her face and in the sunlight Caedus could see just how bloodshot her eyes really were.

“Someone’s going to see you up here and then you’ll be arres--,” she began to hiss.

“No one looks up here, Your Majesty.”

_That part_ of him came back again, and he let go of the wall with one hand and quickly wrapped his arm around her, flattening his palm against her back and pulling her upper body back into the spire. Caedus was arguing with _this part of him that kept coming back_ , saying it would probably be better if she did fall because it would give him easier access to Allana with all the commotion a Queen Mother’s death would cause. That part of him ignored the supposed logic of murdering the Queen Mother and pulled her against him to keep her from leaning back out over the drop that went on for hundreds of feet. The heat of her body surprised him; she felt almost feverish.

“Everyone assumes these entirely-too-tall towers are for decoration. We’re alone and we’re going to be alone for as long as I have you here,” he whispered, moving his other hand from the wall to join the first wrapped around her shaking frame.

“ _What do you want?_ ”

Caedus swallowed, suddenly somewhat nervous about the answer he might get. “I felt something. From you. It was a supernova on my end so I can only imagine what happened to you…” Her appearance had to be an aftereffect of whatever it was. Was she sick? Was there an almost successful assassination attempt?

_Was it Allana--_

“They took Allana,” she said, in a hoarse whisper. Her head lolled backwards, her eyes towards the ceiling of the spire and her body moving in his arms with each sob.

Caedus almost lashed out -- **_how could she let this happen?_ **

But that damn part of him, _that kriffing part of him_ knew it couldn’t be her fault. There was no way she would let that happen. He let go of her, brought his hands up between them and didn’t miss how she flinched at his movement.

_She thinks I’m going to hurt her_ , Caedus mused.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” that part of him said, gently placing his hands on her face and shutting his eyes.

Tenel Ka almost ripped herself away from him and ran, but his palms on her cheeks reminded her of the man she loved so much that she found herself unable to move. She found herself closing her eyes as well.

All of him concentrated, going back to that night and seeing everything through her eyes. Eight people, rips in Tenel Ka’s nightgown as she tried to pull away, two of them at the door -- he could hear Tenel Ka’s shrieks and feel how hard she had fought back. He could almost feel the needle in his own left arm and the punch across the jaw and just like her, he knew he would never forget the way his daughter’s face looked, peaceful, serene -- like she had fallen asleep in the gardens and needed to be carried to her bed.

As he slowly opened his eyes, his hands still holding her cheeks, he stared at her for a moment, his rapidly lightening gaze moving from the bruise up to a few scratches on the bridge of her nose and finally to her closed eyes. There were tears still falling from them. That part of him wanted to lean forward and kiss one that sat on her cheekbone--

_That damn part. I killed you._

But Caedus just let go of her and backed away, his head turning out towards the city below them. When he saw her steady herself against the wall, he spoke up.

“I’m going to find her.”

“Jacen…”

_Don’t say that name._

He kept his mouth pressed shut when that thought echoed through his head.

“Jacen, I’m coming with you.”

His eyes widened, trailing up and down her ragged form. She would just _get in the way_. He wouldn’t have said that months-- even mere weeks ago. But she _turned on him_. She didn’t agree with his ways. And Caedus was fairly sure she wouldn’t agree with what he planned to do with the people who took Allana when he found them.

“ _No_.”

Tenel Ka finally let her eyes meet his and he actually found himself reveling in how sharp they were, the usual stormy gray almost icy now. She narrowed them as they stared at each other.

“What about Hapes?”

She shook her head.

“Was that… an answer to my question…?”

“Jacen, she was the only thing keeping me sane here. I _lost you_. She’s all I have.”

“You didn’t _lose_ me,” he spat, his heart speeding up. They didn’t need to get into _this_ now, but he would push it, of course, because Caedus wanted to -- Caedus _forced it._  “You _left_ me.”

He watched her face closely. He saw her teeth clench and her jaw set -- both things matching well with her narrowed eyes. She needed to be pushed more. _More._ Harder.

“I thought you _loved me,_ Tenel Ka. I loved you, I _always_ loved you. I never, _ever_ thought you would become Queen Mother. You never wanted it. It wouldn’t make you happy and I wanted you to be happy because I loved you. When I came back from captivity and you were Queen Mother and you said you needed to do it for your people, I stood by you even though I knew it wasn’t what you wanted. Even though you started picking up Hapan traits that you scoffed at when you were younger, I stood by you because I loved you and I wanted you to be content with your choices. If I had my way I would’ve taken you and Allana so far away from this ridiculously obnoxious planet and the culture that comes with it -- the backstabbing and the lying and the _murders for power_. But I didn’t, because I loved you and you wanted to do _what was right for your people because apparently that made you happy_. Tell me, Tenel Ka, don’t tell me what your people want -- don’t tell me that giving them what they want makes you happy. What makes _you happy_?

“ _What do you want?_ ”

“I want Allana back,” she said, instantly. He had been watching her expression crumble the whole time he spoke and when those words fell from her lips, Caedus reached forward and wrapped her in a warm embrace, hugging her against his chest and tucking her head under his chin. A sly smile crept its way into his lips as he stared out over the city behind her.

“What will you do _for yourself_? You want Allana back, right? What will you do for _Allana_?” He whispered.

“ _Anything_.”


	4. Internal Struggle

She was supposed to meet him out in the woods past the palace gardens in six hours, after nightfall, so they could make some sort of plan. As much as Caedus hated to admit, she might prove to be useful. She had always been one of the strongest people he had known when he was younger, when he was _Jacen_. She was the girl’s mother, which gave her an instant strong bond with Allana and could be quite beneficial while looking for her. 

That part of him, whatever _Jacen_ had clung to his system, was currently being an unhelpful, obnoxious little boy, like always. Here Caedus was trying to figure out ways Tenel Ka could help him get to Allana and somewhere in his mind he was _just looking forward to seeing her face again_. Allana was gone and _that part of him_ was daydreaming about the Queen Mother. 

Caedus didn’t want to admit that those feelings weren’t just for Tenel Ka, but Allana too. That part of him was thinking about them as a _family_. These were the kinds of things that got in the way. These were the kinds of sparks Caedus needed to stomp out before they had the chance to become giant fires of _emotion_ inside of him. 

His attempts at meditating weren’t working -- he had drawn blood on his palms where he had dug his fingernails in too hard while trying to calm himself down. As he opened his ship and shuffled down the ramp, he turned his head from left to right. He could see the palace in the far distance, through the woods, the spires -- one of which he first saw her again in -- rose high over the palace and even higher over the city of Chume’dan. 

His mind kept going back to the people he saw in Tenel Ka’s memories. Some of them wore masks over the lower halves of their faces, a couple didn’t. Those face shapes, cheekbones and eyes didn’t fool him though -- they were all Hapan. He told himself not to think of it right now, not to think of where they could be keeping his daughter, _who_ was keeping his daughter -- they _had to_ be Ta’a Chume’s goons. 

Backing up the ramp and passing through the door, he tried not to let his sudden wave of rage take over, inhaling deeply and sucking in the fresh air of the life outside the ship. With no warning or second thought, he pulled his arm back and ran his fist into the interior bulkhead by the entrance. He did it a second time. Not only were his palms bleeding now, but his knuckles were as well. 

Caedus felt a little calmer, but it wasn’t enough. He would punch the same bulkhead five more times in the hours before the Queen Mother came to see him.

 

* * *

 

The seven moons were all shining in the sky above the palace and Tenel Ka counted them as she moved swiftly through the gardens, dodging trees and leaping over shrubs. When the guards asked her where she was going, she had responded that she _needed some more time alone_. She had waited until all seven moons were out before she exited the palace, instantly regretting the lack of another layer of clothing. The evening breeze seemed cooler than normal. 

Tenel Ka had locked herself in her chambers after returning from her trip up to the spire; she had sat on the plush carpeting and meditated like Jacen used to do. Her mind expanded and her presence shifted in and out of the corners of it, going over everything that had happened since she failed at keeping the only thing that mattered to her safe. She saw Jacen’s lopsided grin in her mind, something she hadn’t seen the shadow of in months -- a proper grin? Probably years. Her presence moved and she saw the man she had come face-to-face with in the spire earlier that day. He apparently called himself Caedus and the last time she had seen his face was through a holotransmission - the one where she begged him to surrender and then turned on him. She thought that would be the last she would see of him, since anybody who renounced him as a family member or friend became just another annoyance to him. There was always that little sliver of hope in her mind that thought she could bring him back to the light, to what he once stood for, what he once _was_. But she’d given up on that. Now it wasn’t about getting him back -- it was too late for that. It was about getting Allana back though, and she thought _Caedus_ would be helpful in that regard. 

Knowing that her decisions and actions were drifting towards the idea of _using him_ , in a way, a knot formed in her stomach. That’s exactly what he would do. It’s what a Sith would do. Pushing the thought from her mind, she moved her attention to Allana. Whatever happened, she’d be doing it for Allana. Her and _Caedus_ both would be doing it for Allana. 

She found his ship in the exact place he said it would be (he had described the trees around it for her, each time he actually remembered the exact type of tree was a stab in her heart for the boy he once had been) and peeked in through the open hatch. He was seated with his legs crossed on a bunk against the far bulkhead, clad in his black jumpsuit from the waist down, the upper part of it lying behind him. There was a glow-lamp on the bunk beside him, illuminating half of his face as he sat running his fingers over a datapad. The image caused her to stop in the hatch and watch him momentarily, studying the way the dim light from the glow-lamp softened his features and reminded her of all the nights they spent in the Queen Mother’s bed together with only the moonlight to light the chamber. 

“Evening,” he murmured, without looking up. 

Padding across the ship, Tenel Ka stopped in front of the bunk and lowered herself to her knees, sitting on her feet, looking up to him and waiting for him to finish what he was reading. 

When his eyes raised from the datapad, he didn’t see the overly-decorated and proper Queen Mother of Hapes or the reptilian-covered and tough Warrior Princess of Dathomir -- he saw Tenel Ka Djo, hair free and wild, framing her face in a copper glow and steel gray eyes that had _seen too much_. Her feet were in a pair of simple black sandals and the sleeveless tunic she wore was the color of the sap from _Jacen’s_ favorite plant back on Yavin IV, the Nebula orchid. 

Caedus slid over to his left, opening a spot big enough for her to sit next to him. She hesitated but figured if that was what he wanted then she would do it. Why? She needed his help. That’s what she kept telling herself when she pulled herself up next to him, feeling the warmth he left after he shifted. 

The next two hours were spent discussing logistics, specifics and facts. They needed to find out who took Allana, and if it _was_ someone with ties to Ta’a Chume, which someone it happened to be -- or which faction. Unfortunately, she had many loyal ones. They passed his datapad back and forth, scribbling and typing things on it before passing it back and explaining what they’d done. There were different moments for both of them that reminded them of when they were teenagers planning out some ridiculous adventure. 

For Caedus, he harshly scolded himself when he caught his eyes tracing the line from her collarbone up to her chin, his gaze then stuck on her lips as they moved. Her eyes had been on the datapad and she hadn’t even realized it. 

For Tenel Ka, it was the way he still fidgeted with his fingers while thinking, even after all the years that had passed. He would pull at the skin of his knuckles and tap his fingertips together. It was something so small and insignificant, but it brought back so many memories that she didn’t want to recall after losing Jacen. 

“What happened?” She said suddenly. 

“Hmm?” 

“Your hands.” 

“Oh…” He shook his head, looking down at his somewhat fresh palm and knuckle injuries. “Accident. No issues.” 

She reached across her lap to his right hand but he ripped it away as soon as he felt her touch. “No issues. _They’re fine_.” 

Tenel Ka pulled back with no response. Better for her that he acted that way because she knew touching him would just make losing Jacen hurt that much more. The fingertips he fiddled with and the palms he had injured were things so familiar to her that she could feel a dull ache in her chest when she merely laid her eyes on them. 

As they discussed places they thought they should visit to gather intel on the _things_ that had kidnapped Allana, Caedus leaned over to point out something on the datapad that sat on the bunk in front of her. His bare right arm brushed the short length of her left arm and held there for a moment as he explained something. When he pulled back, he grabbed a blanket from behind him and held it out to her. 

Her blank stare just made him push the hand holding the blanket closer to her. 

“I felt you shivering. I can shut the hatch if you’re that cold.” 

“I am fine.” 

He continued to hold the blanket out to her for a few moments before pulling it back. “Suit yourself.” Caedus wrapped it around his own shoulders, the gray fabric falling around his arms and the black sleeveless top he wore. 

“How did you know to come here?” She asked, mere seconds after the blanket settled over him. 

“I felt… you. Something you did. Something you felt. I just felt… this rage...” He turned to look at her, leaning back slightly so the light from the glow-lamp would hit her face. 

“I went to Reef Fortress. Went inside alone.” She swallowed a mouthful of dry air, thinking back to those few hours she spent alone with her anger. “I was in one of the courtyards… the one with the big mural of the Queen Mothers and I… I began slashing my grandmother’s portrait as… as hard as I could.” Tenel Ka covered her mouth with her hand and shut her eyes. “I just kept going and going until I broke down. _I know it’s her_.” 

Caedus felt a heat rise inside of him. As she told him what happened, going back over it in her own mind, he could picture it. She was _so angry_ and _so enraged_ that she exhausted herself slashing her lightsaber blade across stone. He could picture her lowering herself to the ground and he could _see_ the turquoise beam burning the ends of her hair away. He reached out -- noting that she flinched at his physical approach again -- and softly slid his hand under a few of the locks of hair, holding it out to where she could see. 

“And this happened then?” 

Her nod was slow, _tired_ even. Caedus was always surprised at how she didn’t have breakdowns like this more often -- she was always very strong mentally but he knew Hapan politics could take a dire toll on even the most capable people. Dropping her hair, he slowly pulled his hand back into the dark cave the opening of the blanket on his shoulders had created. 

After outlining their ideas and main plan for the fourth time, they sat in silence for a few minutes, Tenel Ka sitting on the edge of the bunk with her feet on the ground and Caedus at the head of his bunk, with his back to the bulkhead, facing her. He broke the stillness with a sigh. “Your Majesty, you know you might have to resort to some drastic measures for this, right?” 

He saw her nod in the dim light. 

“And you won’t bail on me in the middle of it all because you don’t _feel right_?” 

“I just want Allana back. _Safely._ ” 

Caedus could see the glimmer of tears rising in her eyes and he could feel, through their bond, sadness for _Jacen_ and what almost felt like revulsion towards herself for working with him. Their connection went quiet when Tenel Ka realized what he had been doing and he responded by leaning forward, taking the blanket from his own shoulders and moving it to hers. 

“You want to go,” he whispered. “Take that with you so you aren’t cold on the way back.” 

Tenel Ka could feel his breath on her cheek and she didn’t hesitate in standing up, holding the blanket shut at her neck. “Thank you,” she responded, simply. 

“Two days,” he called after her, as he watched her move towards the hatch. 

“Two days.”

Two days later, their plan was supposed to be put into motion.


	5. War Waged

The first message came to the Fountain Palace a day before they were supposed to meet up in disguise at the public hangars of Chume’dan. It was from the Red Wake, a band of supposed direct descendents of the first Lorell Raiders, who were staunch supporters of Ta’a Chume. They wore masks that covered the the lower halves of their faces, spoke quietly into the holocamera and showed Allana, sitting alone in what looked like a cell, before talking about a ransom -- the throne. If the Queen Mother wanted her daughter back, they needed to give up the throne to a successor of their choosing. One who had been handpicked by Ta’a Chume years before. 

They also spoke of how they could have murdered the Queen Mother the night they kidnapped Allana, had they chose to. But Ta’a Chume had to stay alive without _anything_ left, so Tenel Ka Djo would have to suffer the same way. No throne, no daughter, no _will_. They wouldn’t kill Allana either, not yet anyways, they said. They wanted to make sure she was just out of Tenel Ka’s reach until the day her or Allana died -- whichever came first. 

Their plan had to commence early. 

In the midst of the commotion the palace had been stirred into due to the Red Wake’s message, Caedus found his way to Tenel Ka’s quarters and easily opened the door like he used to on all of his visits. He found her packing items into a bag, her face flushed and twisted into a grimace, and he stopped momentarily, his gaze drifting around the room. He remembered playing with Allana out on the balcony ahead of him, showing her different types of birds down in the gardens and teaching her their calls. The low wooden table that sat in the sunken salon area to his left, he remembered when he and Tenel Ka had been talking one night on the sofa in front of it and shortly thereafter he had her laying on the polished surface, his hands and knees planted on either side of her and his lips trailing up her chest where the fabric of her nightgown met her skin. Sometimes he found the the oversized furniture the Hapans loved so much actually useful. The sudden memory made his skin tingle -- something Caedus cursed _that part of him_ for -- and he was broken out of his reverie by a voice to his right. 

“How did _you_ get in?” 

“ _You_ never changed the entrance code, Your Majesty.” He turned to face her, an eyebrow cocked and lips sliding into a smirk. 

He watched as she opened her mouth to respond, but just ended up shaking her head instead. 

Grabbing her bag first, Caedus then slipped a hand around her bare arm, fingers brushing what was left of where the needle had stabbed her, and pulled her out into the hallway, towards the stairs near the south wing. They were rarely used, rarely guarded and they were the closest to the gardens and the woods beyond. “Do you have everything in here?” 

“Yes.” 

“Clothes.” 

“Yes.” 

“Lightsaber.” 

“Yes.” 

“Datapad with--” 

“Yes, I’m not a _child_.” She ripped her arm from his grasp, but continued to follow him at the same pace he had set. 

“Is everything settled with _your people_?” 

“People on the council -- ones that _I trust_ \-- are running things from a private place out of the public eye while I’m gone. To the people of Hapes and the galaxy beyond, the Queen Mother is going to be away at ‘a retreat’ for a while to plan the retrieval of her daughter. _Nobody_ knows where I’m actually going, they just know I will return at some point soon.” 

Caedus stopped on the empty staircase, one boot planted on a plushly carpeted stair, the other on the next one up and Tenel Ka on two above him. He raised his eyes to her and she couldn’t tell if the sparkle in them was Caedus being _Caedus_ or something less malevolent and more mischievous, like some leftover ghost of the man she loved and lost. 

“What if you don’t return?” 

“I have already accepted the fact that I might die. I just want Allana to be safe -- to be in safe hands.” 

She noticed his eyes grew a little wider at the phrase _I might die_ and she steeled herself as he stepped up to the stair below her, their faces suddenly inches apart. 

“I didn’t mean that,” he whispered. Caedus rapidly sent flashes of images through their connection, keeping his eyes locked with hers. There was a small house on some remote planet filled with lush forests and green grassy plains, then _Jacen_ \-- no trace of Caedus -- dozing on an old couch with a napping Allana tucked between him and the back cushions, then Tenel Ka and Allana outside feeding some small, furry creatures. Finally she saw the two of them -- Tenel Ka and _Jacen_ \-- in each other’s arms, slowly dancing together in a dimly lit bedroom to some echo of a song that she could suddenly hear in her head. “I meant, what if you _don’t want to return_?” 

Tenel Ka let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, the air slightly shifting some of the brown curls that marked his forehead. When she didn’t say anything, he whispered to her again. 

“And my hands aren’t safe enough?” He raised his right hand to her waist, noting, yet again, her flinch. It was less noticeable now, but he still picked it up. His palm slid from her side down to rest on her hip. 

“ _No_.” Tenel Ka pushed his hand away and shoved past him, berating herself for even thinking there was still a chance Jacen was in there somewhere. **_He was gone._ ** She had already accepted this. Caedus was just toying with her. _How dare he._  

While leaving Hapes, Tenel Ka only half-listened to Caedus’ list of changes in their plans. She heard something about Telkur Station and his lightsaber and some sort of disguises, but her thoughts could only focus on Allana. 

The only thing she really registered visually was him -- _Caedus_ \-- leaning over the leftmost console in the cockpit. Communications. His pale skin was stark against all the black he wore and he was pressing a button on the console so hard that his finger was shaking. The only thing she really heard since take off was his deep voice speaking into the ship’s comm system - the last words of the message he was sending to the Red Wake, she assumed. 

“...I hope you all weren’t expecting to get out of this with your lives. _Any of you_.”

 

* * *

 

They had been on three planets in the previous two days and she had been gone from the Fountain Palace for a week. The two of them hadn’t talked unless they really needed to, which usually happened when they were about to disembark somewhere to ask around about certain groups or places or -- their latest escapade -- to find a black market dealer for explosives that Caedus needed. 

They had been on a planet in the Hapes Cluster and there was a _man selling explosives right off of the main street of the capital city._ Normally, she would have been more affected and taken that information back to the palace to put something into motion so instances such as that would come to a screeching halt. Instead, she had just stood beside Caedus, wrapped in a cloak with a scarf over her nose and mouth. She hadn’t been dressed like a Queen Mother, but her face was recognizable everywhere in the 63 planet cluster. 

Caedus had slung a bag over his shoulder and had nodded to the man, thanking him, and then turned to her, placing a free hand at the small of her back and guiding her through the crowds on the main thoroughfare. All she could see of him then were his hands and eyes; everything else had been covered against the sand that whipped around the buildings and back through the alleys, before returning to the desert plains beyond. They were light brown now, those rich brandy-brown eyes that she used to get lost in were growing lighter and lighter by the day. 

Now, as they hung in space behind one of Hapes gas giants, waiting for morning on the next planet they needed to visit, she could see more of him. His feet, which hung off the end of the bunk, his back, covered in scars that hadn’t been there the last time he stayed with her and his arms, which she had been wrapped in too many times to count. His face was buried in the barely there pillow he had on the bunk and his hands were tucked under it. They took turns sleeping, always making sure that one of them was awake and alert in case they got a message or there was a threat. 

Tenel Ka sat on a durasteel crate near the bed, her eyes not moving from his back, following the scars as they raised and lowered with each deep breath he took. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, and the only thing that tore her eyes from those shadows of injuries past was when he turned his head, his face ending up in her direction. He was still asleep and his chest and back still moved with breaths at the same slow speed as before. Now she could see brown waves of hair stuck to his forehead and the way his nose twitched sometimes when he slept. The silence she had been in the center of for the past however long was shattered by a low, thick sound -- something like stone rubbing against stone. Using the Force to hone in on it, she found herself mildly surprised at the source. 

When she realized the noise was coming from Caedus, she slid off of the crate and crept forward, turning her head so that her ear was closest to his head. 

He was _grinding his teeth_. 

It was something she had _never_ heard him do before -- and she figured she would be a fairly good judge with the number of times they had slept side-by-side. 

She watched him in a muted awe for a minute or two, before deciding not to wake him up. This was _ruining him_ . Alongside his lightened eyes, his cheeks had grown thinner and his brow always seemed to be furrowed. She’d hear him coughing in the cockpit of the ship, a horrible, rattling sound that kept her from sleeping sometimes. His anger seemed to be the only thing holding him together and if she had told Jacen about _this mess_ \-- all of it -- years before at the academy on Yavin IV, he would’ve laughed so loud and so hard that the avians that made nests on the ledges of the temple would’ve scattered. If there was one thing he would never be in his life, it was a _Sith_. 

And now here he was. 

Tenel Ka looked away from him and shut her eyes, the grinding noise seemed almost deafening to her now. She wouldn’t stop him from being consumed by _this_ , she wouldn’t stop him from subconsciously damaging himself. He destroyed the man she loved, the boy who would _never be a Sith_ , and was constantly dangling it in front of her -- showing her what was, what could have been. Caedus killed him and was _wearing his face_ and _using him against her_. 

There had been a few times since they left Hapes where Tenel Ka’s body just wanted to give up. Her mind would go blank and her vision would blur and she would have to hold onto something close by to keep herself from falling over. Whenever that happened she just thought about Allana. At that moment she tried so hard to focus on her daughter and what life would be like for the two of them when they were reunited. But her gaze returned to him, his face. 

Her lightsaber felt heavy at her side, and she was fairly sure he’d sense something and wake up, but the thought of wrapping her hand around her rancor tooth hilt and driving her turquoise blade through the back of the _monster_ sleeping in front of her was so tempting. 

His face though. She could still see _Jacen_.

Stumbling backwards, Tenel Ka felt the crate behind her and quickly pushed away from it, heading towards the cockpit and trying to leave her sudden onslaught of dark thoughts back with him -- the one who acted on those sorts of emotions the most.


	6. Little Truths

She might have turned on him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still appreciate her in certain ways.

Caedus watched her at the bar, talking to Terran Ryl, the next person on their list of suspected supporters they were going to interrogate. He could see the Red Wake’s symbol on him --  a small patch on the back of the man’s jacket.

_Way to give yourself away._

He noted the patch, but only momentarily since most of his attention was on Tenel Ka, clad in an almost skintight bodysuit and hair hidden under a black wig. She had _both_ of her elbows on the bar and her chin in her hands as she pretended to be enthralled by whatever he was saying. Caedus noticed how off she felt about the prosthetic arm she was wearing for their disguises -- she would forget to use it sometimes.

Once she got him outside under the night sky and into the alleyway with her, Caedus emerged and the two of them started asking him questions about the Red Wake and where they were based. Hapes had sixty-three planets and they had to be on one of them because there was no way they would leave when they wanted to put someone else on the throne and dangle Allana as bait at the same time.

“Like I would tell you,” Ryl snarled. “Why do you even care? What business do you have with ‘em?”

Without any hesitation or warning, Tenel Ka grabbed Terran’s shoulders and delivered a knee swiftly into his midsection.

“ _Family business_ ,” she said, leaning over him while he was doubled over holding his stomach.

Besides appreciating the way she looked in her disguise, Caedus also appreciated _that_ . His eyes were widened slightly and his arms crossed over his chest while a smirk played on his lips. “You should listen to her. I know what she’s capable of and trust me, you _don’t_ want to experience it.”

Tenel Ka threw a glare in his direction and he just pursed his lips and arched an eyebrow momentarily in response. That small exchange gave Ryl enough time to rip a holdout blaster from his waist and aim it at Tenel Ka, but that was _all_ he had time to do before she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, the blaster skittering across the worn stone of the alleyway.

“I’m not telling you shavit,” he spat, sneering up to Caedus. “You’re an absolute idiot if you think you’re gonna get anywhere near Red Wake. They’ll rip you and _sweetcheeks_ behind me -- they’ll _rip you both apart_.”

“Suit yourself.” In an instant, after the flick of Caedus’ wrist and an exhale, the man was dead on the ground with his neck snapped. His gaze moved to Tenel Ka, expecting her to be giving him _that look_ of disapproval and disgust that he had seen too many times to count in the past weeks, but he just watched her throw the dead man’s arm down and run her forearm across her face, smearing some of the heavy makeup she never wanted to put on in the first place. She knelt down and searched the pockets of his jacket and pants, pulling out a datapad and some credits, then dropped the credits and tucked the datapad under her arm.

“Let’s go,” she stated, starting back up the alleyway towards the hangar.

Caedus followed, taking a moment once more as they moved, to appreciate her curves in the disguise she wore, but also feeling a little overheated at the display he just witnessed. Thinking about the way her knee rammed into the pirate’s stomach and the way she acted like that holdout blaster in her face was nothing. She was strong and confident like the girl -- and woman -- he always knew, but she was also embracing something she hadn’t before Allana was taken.

Her _anger_.

And that thought sent a shiver up his spine. She was _dangerous_ and he was hypnotized by it.

 

* * *

 

“Yes, I am.” A pause. “I’m fine. _Please_ , trust me.”

Tenel Ka’s eyes were tracing the swirls of the oceans on Dreena below as she held her right hand over her ear, listening carefully to a female voice with which she was comfortably familiar. When the voice went silent, she took the small earpiece out and threw it on the console ahead of her, ran her hand down over her face and leaned back, only able to rest moments before she heard _him_.

“ _Worship_.”

“I thought you were in the shower.”

“I don’t take as long as some people.” He motioned to her hair as he sat himself in the co-pilot’s chair next to her. “Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody.” Her gaze still roamed over Dreena’s sprawling blue planetside and continued doing so until a hand grabbed the arm of the captain’s seat and turned it, her eyes now meeting a clean face framed by damp dark brown hair. Eyebrows of the same shade were raised as if he was still waiting for an answer.

“ _Nobody_.”

“Really?” Settling back into the co-pilot’s seat, Caedus joined his hands together and rested them on his bare torso, not letting his eyes leave her. “So _no one_ wanted to know if you were alright.” A drop of water fell from his hair and traced his jawline before he turned his head, wiping his chin on his shoulder. His eyes stayed on her through that motion as well. “I know I’d be worried about my Queen Mother if she’d been gone this long. Who knows what--”

“Hapes is fine.”

“And how do you know that if you’re not there? An even more pressing question… how do you know that if you weren’t talking to anyone just now?”

“ _It was my cousin_.”

“Which one? One of the twins?”

“Trista.”

Caedus nodded slowly. He had met them before -- Trista and Taryn Zel -- some of the only people Tenel Ka shared blood with who were worth anything.

“Updating you on Hapes?”

“They told me Hapes is fine but they aren’t there.” She had toyed with the idea of telling him about Trista and Taryn’s current mission before, but now she thought it might be best to let him in on it, so he would be aware of their possible presence later in their plans. Tenel Ka finally pulled her eyes from his. “They’re joining Red Wake.”

Out of the corner of her eye she could see him lean forward and rest his elbows on his knees. “Oh?”

“They left Hapes when we did and have been slowly but surely working their way into the faction’s good graces. They’ll be _pirates_ in no time. Then they can try to find out where they’re keeping Allana and keep us updated on things they discover from the inside.”

“Whose idea was this?”

“ _Mine_. Who else would have this idea?”

“I figured it was you.” Caedus always knew there was more to her than she let on. It had been that way since she and _Jacen_ were teenagers. First the secret about her Hapan heritage, prolonging her pregnancy to keep Allana’s father a secret -- she always had these things up her sleeve and she always had a reason for either keeping them there or pulling them out and showing them off. So why didn’t she tell him about her cousins before? “Were you going to tell me about this at some point?”

“I just did.”

“Only because I caught you on the comlink with one of them.”

She was focused on Dreena again, and he watched as blinking lights from the control console and the natural blue from the planet ahead of them hit her face. There was _that part of him_ again, and this time it was almost beaming -- she always had a plan, _always_. That damn part of him wouldn’t stop and Caedus opened his mouth, a few heartbeats going by before any sound actually started to come out.

“Look, I…” He paused, unsure if it was because he couldn’t find the right words or if Caedus was internally screaming at him to shut the _nine Corellian Hells_ up. “The only reason I brought you with me was--”

“You wanted to _use me_ to help _you_ save Allana.”

Caedus nodded and somewhere inside of him there was a voice that echoed, _And I’m so sorry._

Tenel Ka caught just a ghost of those words through their connection -- faint enough that she wasn’t sure if they were actually thought by him or if it was just something _she wanted to hear_.

“You’re her mother. You have the best connection to her. You’re… strong, smart, resourceful… I…” He shrugged. “You obviously have the drive to want her back as much as I do, maybe.”

It was her turn to nod, and as she did, she swiveled her chair, suddenly staring right back into his eyes with a pair of narrowed stormy orbs. “I wanted to come with you for the same reason. You’re a horrible, unstoppable _monster_ and I thought you’d be a _convenient_ aid in getting _my_ daughter back. I knew _exactly_ what you were doing when you let me come with you.”

She stood from the captain’s seat, pulled her robe tighter around her and padded on bare feet out of the cockpit, not giving him a second glance.

Caedus watched her exit from the cockpit and walk down the hall to the common area, his eyes locked on her back until she was out of sight. Once he couldn’t see her anymore, he sighed and turned his head to Dreena. His skin tingled and even though he was clad only in a pair of simple black pants and the cockpit had the same cool circulated air the rest of the ship shared, his whole body felt hot. That woman had more Hapan in her than she liked to admit and while Caedus wasn’t a fan of _most_ Hapans, this one still managed to impress him immensely and drive him insane at the same time -- in more ways than one.


	7. Unsettled

Caedus had been in the refresher, his fingers tracing his cheekbones -- a feature that grew more prominent as his cheeks grew gaunt. His calloused fingertips were resting under his eye when he felt a stabbing pain in his chest, followed by what sounded like a choked sob coming from the direction of the bunk. Caedus was more curious than anything, while _that part of him_ caused his feet to carry him out of the refresher and rush to the bunk.

Tenel Ka was tossing and turning, sheets tangled around her ankles, tunic twisted around her midsection and fingers repeatedly balling into a fist. She was saying something in her sleep, but he couldn’t make out any of it -- just that it sounded urgent and she wanted it to stop. The pain in his chest flared every time she threw herself on her other side and dropping to his knees on the edge of the cot, he grabbed her and pulled her to him.

“Tenel Ka,” he shook her gently but she continued to thrash in his arms. “Tenel Ka!” Putting a hand on her cheek, he tapped it a few times then ran his fingers up into her hair, to the back of her neck where he pulled her face towards him. He could see her eyes darting around under her eyelids and he turned her head, repeating her name into her ear.

The pain in his chest stopped, but another weaker pain flared up when her fingers wrapped around his arm and her nails dug into his skin. She was awake; she was shaking and covered in sweat, but she was awake.

“Hey.”

“They were _hurting her_ , I saw them. There was blood and--”

“Shhhh.” Without a second thought he cradled her against his chest and ran his hand over her hair. “It was a dream, it _wasn’t real_. She’s fine, I can feel her.” Caedus attempted to help calm her down through the bond they still managed to share, slowly rocking slightly and still petting her hair.

“Jacen…” It came out in a cry against his black undershirt.

He didn’t correct her, like he had done a number of times since they left Hapes. He had been having dreams also -- _nightmares_ , like the one she had experienced, and they chilled him to the bone. They were so vivid and he could always remember every detail when he woke up. He would see the people who got into Tenel Ka’s room, he would see his daughter and he would hear _screams_. He wouldn’t correct her, not now, not _this time_. Pulling himself onto the bunk, he put his back against the bulkhead and gently moved her upper body into his lap, her head resting on his thigh and her hair splayed across his legs. It had grown so long since the last time he had visited Hapes.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know, Tenel Ka. I can feel her when I shut my eyes but I can’t pinpoint where they have her. I’m _trying_.”

Running his fingers through the copper waves, he continued reassuring her Allana was fine until she fell asleep again.

He spent the next hour braiding small bunches of her hair. It was something _Jacen_ would find himself doing sometimes in the middle of the night while the two of them were clothed only in the Hapan silk sheets that were still caught around them. Tenel Ka would be sitting up, absently flipping through channels on the holoscreen and Jacen would sit behind her and make snide comments about the late night infomercials she sometimes stopped on because she got distracted by his hands.

Caedus dropped his head back against the bulkhead and shut his eyes tight, somewhat disappointed in himself. He was supposed to be _using her_ for assistance in retrieving his daughter.

This was the point, with his hands in her hair and the warmth of her body hitting his skin, he finally changed the thought to _their_ daughter. They were retrieving _their_ daughter, rescuing her. Together. He didn’t know what would happen after they got her back, who would take her, but he pushed that away from his mind and just focused on finding Allana.

 

* * *

 

When Tenel Ka couldn’t sleep, she would sometimes find herself in the cockpit gazing out to space or in the common area of the ship, curled up on the worn out couch that lined the bulkhead there. Tonight was the latter. Unblinking steel gray eyes stared vacantly to the low table in front of her and the counter across the way, where they would throw together something to eat whenever one of them got so hungry they figured their stomachs would eat themselves. Her thoughts drifted back to times when Allana would wake her up in the middle of the night and ask to sleep in bed with her. She would ask in that meek voice, cracking with squeaks while she rubbed her eyes and described the nightmare she had. Sometimes it was about the girl’s great grandmother. Sometimes it was about the girl’s father.

The only thing that would ever break Tenel Ka out of these trances was one of the very things Allana had nightmares about. Her father. Darth Caedus.

Now Allana was gone and the only thing that woke Tenel Ka up when she managed to get to sleep was Caedus. Rambling to himself while he paced around the ship, talking back to the Holonews, crouching beside the bunk murmuring worries in her ear when he knew she was sleeping or a mix of any of those. Each time, she would wake up, pull herself to a sitting position and wrap her right arm around him, pulling his head into the crook of her neck and trying to calm him through their connection in the Force.

His downward spiral started _because_ of Allana. His emotions were too strong. While trying to fix the galaxy for her future himself, _something happened_. He had his hands around so many political strands, pulling and pushing and weaving them all to form a better place, no matter how deep into the Dark Side he had to go to achieve it. One strand that eluded him though: _Ta’a Chume and her supporters_. Yes, he had ruined Ta’a Chume’s chances at everything by putting her in a comatose state after her first attempt on Allana’s life, but the woman’s supporters were _riled_ because of it. They knew Tenel Ka had to have something to do with what happened to Ta’a Chume -- they were mostly clueless on Jacen’s part in all of it. But that didn’t matter -- as long as they thought Tenel Ka was involved, they knew exactly how to get back at her for what happened to their eternal Queen Mother. They hit where it hurt the most. _They took Allana_.

And Tenel Ka had a front row seat to the whole disaster. Jacen’s downfall, Caedus’ uprising, Allana’s kidnapping and her own steadily building rage towards her grandmother.

A shattering sound startled her out of her state of contemplation, the blanket she had around her shoulders falling back onto the couch as she pushed herself off of it and hurried towards the source of the noise. Another smash sounded before she made it to the refresher, where she found the cause of the noise, bleeding from _somewhere_ on his hand. All she could see from his wrist down was a rich shade of red, drops sliding down his fingers and raining onto the shards of what used to be the mirror under his bare feet. His face was pointing towards the ground until he sensed her and when he looked up, the first thing she noticed was his eyes. They were glassy, focused on nothing; he was blinking rapidly, almost erratically, and his irises had grown even lighter. His mouth hung open and his breathing was slow and deep, but it stilted for a moment when he looked liked he was about to say something. All that came out was a tired sigh.

“Caedus…” She had clapped a hand over her mouth instantly when she first saw him and had now moved to reach through the threshold, grabbing his uninjured hand and gently pulling him from the small refresher unit. “Watch your feet,” she said, over the sound of crunching glass.

It was the first time she called him by his name. He wasn’t sure if it was because she was tired of him correcting her, tired of calling him by the name of the _boy_ who no longer existed, or because it was _what he wanted_.

Tenel Ka guided him to the bunk and helped him onto it, seating herself beside him and delicately pulling his injured hand into her lap. Her nightgown, which had been a shade of ivory, quickly turned a shade of crimson as she studied what he had done. It took her almost a standard half an hour to pick pieces of the mirror out of his skin and another to clean the blood and cover his hand and wrist in a bacta wrap. She had brushed the glass from his feet, also -- which surprisingly weren’t as bad. The calloused spots of his feet attracted the most, but those hadn’t penetrated his skin. The whole refresher unit had been covered in a carpet of glass; she had expected his feet to be a torn up mess.

His eyes had been focused on her face while she worked, but she hadn’t noticed. His mind had also been focused on her, which was dangerous for Caedus because _that part of him_ brought his thoughts back to the time on Yavin IV when Jacen had fallen out of a tree and straight into a giant bush of thorns. Tenel Ka had led him back to the temple and seated him on her bunk, telling him to focus on something else while she deftly plucked each little spike out of his skin. He had followed her instructions and focused on something else but that something else ended up being her, sneaking glances to his side where she sat so he could admire her and the amount of concentration she displayed. Caedus must have been too loose with where his thoughts went because the corners of Tenel Ka’s lips were upturned for a split-second before she stood up from the bunk.

“Can you sit over here for a moment so I can change these?” She motioned to the sheets under him that had gone from a tan color to a deep red since he had sat down on them. “You should take that shirt off too, unless you want to smell blood while you sleep.”

Pulling himself to the stack of crates across from the bunk, he put his weight against them and watched as she tossed the stained fabric into a heap at the foot of the bed, replacing it with a fresh set of sheets and blankets. She turned to him and threw a nod at the clean bunk, which he slowly settled himself on before looking back up to her, his breath catching in his throat as he realized he was staring at the skin of her back. It only lasted for a moment though before a sheath of dark green slid over it, a wadded up ball of ivory and crimson flew past his face and landed in the pile of dirty sheets and Tenel Ka was digging through her bag again. That moment was all his mind needed -- that same part that remembered the adventure with the thorn bush was recalling occasions when he would soak in the tub that took up half of the giant refresher in the Queen Mother’s quarters (“This isn’t a bath, it’s a pool,” he had said, the first time he saw it) -- occasions when he would persuade her to get in the water with him and then lightly run his fingers up and down her back while he listened to her vent about the council or her grandmother or one of the courtiers that always seem to infest the Fountain Palace.

By the crates, where Tenel Ka’s bag sat, she had frozen in place when she realized where his mind had gone. She could almost feel his fingers dancing over her spine again. Her assumptions went to Caedus toying with her again, but when she spun around to confront him about it she saw that he was curled up on his side facing the wall, shoulders shaking and breath ragged.

Stepping over to the side of the bunk, she hesitated momentarily before seating herself beside him, letting her hand rest on the shoulder not pressed into the sheets under his frame. “Why did you hurt yourself?” She meant to ask why he had broken the mirror, but she knew he wasn’t aiming to just break something. He needed to break something that would _cause him pain_.

She could see his head shaking in response. She asked again, quieter, leaning in a little closer to him, but she got the same thing. Her hand went to his head, where she combed through his hair a few times before moving down to his neck, fingers sliding down his spine and to the small of his back, where her fingertips lingered for three heartbeats before she stood and left him alone.


	8. Descent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a couple liberties here with what happens when one starts going to the dark side -- although, I guess it's different for everyone so maybe this is a thing! ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Also, in another universe where I am even more horrible, I titled this chapter "Sithdrawals" ...I'm sorry.

When he was very young -- when he was _Jacen_ \-- Caedus always assumed Sith were emotionless, killing machines who wanted to crush the light side and everything it stood for. As he got older and learned more, his views changed. The idea that they lacked emotions and didn’t want to be around people, let alone be touched, somehow still lingered in his mind for years, but he realized that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Maybe it was just him, maybe he was the only Sith that craved the feeling of someone else close by. 

It had been roughly four months since Allana had been taken and the Red Wake had given an ultimatum. They would place someone on the throne in the next few months or there would be riots in the consortium. The Red Wake had factions on almost every planet in the Hapes Cluster and each one was apparently ready to cause massive amounts of damage. Tenel Ka didn’t look fazed by this message. She hadn’t been fazed by much lately. 

He would often find her seated in the co-pilot’s chair in the cockpit, her steely gaze glassy-eyed and locked on the visible expanse of space through the viewport. This was one of those times. He had woken up from a light doze that only lasted about an hour and heard a beeping in the cockpit. She was seated in the co-pilot’s chair and without a second thought, he stopped next to her and gently buried his fingers in her hair, slowly rubbing the nape of her neck. A quick glance at the displays ahead of them informed him that the noises were a notice regarding a ship leaving the planet they were keeping an eye on -- Ediorung. He shut the alarm off with a split-second flick of the wrist. Things like that – even overly simple things – took much less time when you could use the Force to take care of them. 

He parted his lips to say something, but stopped when he realized the first words out of his mouth were almost _Tenel Ka_. There could be no more Tenel Ka. There could be no more Djo, no _Queen Mother_. He was in the process of trying to mentally drain all of that out of her, something he didn’t think she would take to easily, but she was pleasantly surprising him. She had always been one to hide her emotions, but now it seemed to him that when her emotions were running higher than they’ve ever been, they were brought out of hiding and were much easier to get a grasp on. 

Kneeling in front of her durasteel perch, he rested his free hand on the seat cushion next to her thigh and delicately pulled the other from her hair, his fingers staying in contact with her skin as they moved from the nape of her neck to her jaw and finally down to her collarbone. He only let them leave her flesh momentarily as he replaced his few fingers with his whole palm, pressing it up against the right side of her neck. Her skin felt cold and she seemed so small to him all of the sudden, curled up in the co-pilot’s chair that threatened to swallow her whole, her eyes glazed over and her skin pale. 

The cockpit had fallen absolutely silent after he turned the warnings off and his murmur broke the quiet. “You’ve been awake for twenty-three hours. Most of them have been spent in this chair.“ He patted the seat cushion next to her thigh, lowered his voice to a whisper and finished. "Maybe you should _go to bed_.” 

It took her a few moments, but her cold, distant gaze had managed to drop to where he was kneeling in front of her. She seemed to look right through him until he spoke and her vision came into focus. Her lips pursed, but not because a response was imminent. Nothing was imminent except for her sitting there, staring at him. 

They had to help each other through these things. When she would get like this, Caedus would calmly interact with her, talk to her and coax her out until she completely escaped her trance. On the other hand, when he had one of the breakdowns that were growing more frequent, she was right there next to him, whispering to him and running her fingers through his hair over his left ear repeatedly, tucking the locks behind it. Sometimes it took a while, but his breathing would return to normal, his chest would stop heaving and he would stop rambling. 

They were both on either side of a carefully balanced scale and when one of them started to collapse emotionally with their side of the scale falling fast, the other would help them to balance it all back out. 

“I’m fine.” It was almost silent, swallowed by the hum of the ship. 

He watched her shift slightly, a number of cracks ringing out as she moved some of her joints for the first time in hours. Her head fell to the right as her eyes returned to the viewport and her hand dropped into her lap, palm up, fingers curled. 

“Erida,” she said on the same, almost silent level. Her eyes closed. “It’s going to be Erida.” 

 _Erida._ He was going to ask her about the choice further, as it seemed familiar to him somehow, but needed to make sure she made it to bed first – the conversation could wait. All he could feel from her through their connection was an unrelenting flatline of anger, stabbed through here and there with spikes of exhaustion. It seemed to him like she would silently _rage_ herself to death if this continued. “Good,” he returned her words at the same volume, his exhale displacing strands of hair around her face. 

Caedus knew if he needed to, he would sit on the hard floor of the cockpit for hours if it meant getting her out of this state. It seemed like every time she fell into it now, the duration of each episode grew longer. When these started, Caedus almost looked at it as a liability. Maybe bringing her to his side, close to him once more – maybe it had been a bad idea. But these trances were a small price to pay for what she provided in terms of strength, gave to him in terms of help and _meant to him_. If she wasn’t with him, he knew he would’ve gone off some sort of deep end by now – especially with the messages Ta’a Chume’s band of _merry idiots_ kept sending regarding their daughter and the takeover of Hapes. Each one pushed them both a little harder and drove them both a bit more mad. Sometimes when he couldn’t sleep, Caedus would lay on the bunk, imagining what it would be like to simply _pop_ all of the pirates’ heads like _Jacen_ and _Tenel Ka_ used to do with wasaka berries on visits to Kashyyyk when they were younger. 

Moving his hands to her cheeks, he stood up enough to block her view of the clear picture of space around them and spoke again, still quiet. “Now come on, _please_. You need to rest.” 

When she finally stood, her hand went to his chest first, then her forehead landed above that and they stood like that for a little bit before he nudged her out of the cockpit and led her to the bunk, where she crawled under the sparse sheets. After he watched her settle, he started to turn to leave the cabin but stopped when he felt a hand on his leg and looking back down to the bunk, he saw her staring back up at him, her eyes almost as empty as they were when they were locked on the viewport. Almost. 

Caedus could see something in them, he could feel something from her. Something he faintly recognized. 

The need for someone to be near. 

It might have been different for him had he been alone, like he had been when he was planning to kidnap Allana from Hapes and it might have been different if she wasn’t giving in to emotions she never thought she would, but they were both connected by a giant beacon -- _their daughter_. Finding her and making sure she was safe. 

Motioning for her to scoot closer to the wall, he watched as she shifted and turned onto her side to face the wall then slipped under the covers himself, facing the opposite direction. Caedus could noted her back shaking against his but feeling her out in the Force let him know that she didn’t feel as… _lost_ with him that close as she did in the co-pilot’s chair. 

He could sense her drifting off to sleep behind him and Caedus almost slipped out of bed to go continue looking at the charts of the Hapes Cluster he had been scrawling all over, but he found himself frozen in place. The feeling of her behind him, breathing deeply, in and out -- it was something he realized he needed.

 

* * *

 

 “What was that most recent message from them then?!” She hissed into the comlink. 

The voice of Taryn Zel came back through the speaker. “It was a bluff. They’re not starving her, T, don’t worry. Our faction lead was telling his officers about the lies they’re putting in those damn messages to throw you and anyone who’s on your side _off_. They’re just trying to rile you up hoping it’ll get you to give up the throne faster.” 

The mere thought of those scum not feeding her daughter was making her heart race and her teeth clench. She was trying to breathe slowly and grasp at one of those calming techniques she had learned when she was younger, but nothing was bringing her down from the white hot level of rage she had been coasting on throughout most of the day. And the day before that. And the one before that as well. 

Caedus was standing outside the cockpit with his back to the bulkhead, listening to the conversation. Tenel Ka knew he was, but they both wanted to make sure her cousins didn’t know of his presence and part in saving Allana -- especially since the identity of her father was still a secret. Gently, he reached out to Taryn while she continued to try to talk Tenel Ka out of her anger and disbelief, and he shut his eyes, _focusing_. 

Slipping into the cockpit, staying close to the console as to not make any noise that the comlink might pick up, he slowly entered her field of vision. Once she looked up at him, he slowly mouthed the words: 

 _They’re telling the truth._  

Her eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened which Caedus countered with a slow nod. She seemed to give up arguing after that, but he could still see _and feel_ the fact that she was stewing in negativity and as she finished up the conversation on the comlink, he exited the cockpit and went to the common area, leaning back up against the counter. 

His mind was suddenly racing. She wasn’t trusting her cousins -- some of the only people she ever trusted on Hapes, she wasn’t calm enough to even think about using the Force to see if her cousin was telling the truth, the motions and reactions she was having during the conversation he just witnessed were frantic; this was all familiar to him.

Caedus remembered similar things happening to him when he really began to let go of what was referred to as _the light side_ \-- when the point of no return was staring you in the face and you knew you had no desire to do such a thing as _return_ so you just _kept falling_. He remembered the physical pain and mental anguish that _in-between_ phase caused. He remembered not sleeping for six days. He remembered not eating and babbling to himself on occasion. He remembered lying on the floor of his apartment on Coruscant, in the fetal position, with his face buried in his hands trying to just survive through the sudden flare of intense pain in his head. That was when his eyes started -- _ever-so-slightly_ \-- getting lighter. 

When he was a kid, they learned about the dangers of things like death sticks and andris and the withdrawals that came with them when a user tried to stop. What he went through at that point in his shift sounded eerily similar to the withdrawals they read about during their lessons. He knew this point was coming for her and he knew he wasn’t looking forward to it because he knew it had to be something she went through _alone_. It would make her stronger in the end. 

There was a crash at the head of the ship and a string of sharp Dathomirian curses, followed by what sounded like empty, hollow sobs. Silence fell over the ship for only a standard minute or two before a storm seemed to emerge from the cockpit, red-gold hair disheveled, eyes wide and steel gray, deep blue robe fluttering open over a black shirt and lounge pants and a scowl like one Caedus had never seen from her. _Jacen_ hadn’t either. 

He purposely avoided eye contact with her as she swept through the common area, only throwing a sideways glance in her direction after she passed him. She was over by the hatch, forehead and palm against the bulkhead, muttering something he couldn’t hear from where he stood. His gaze didn’t stay on her long because he _knew how this felt_. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone witnessing him going through it either. 

 _That part of him_ twitched, ready to move over there and pull her into his arms to comfort her, but Caedus just pushed off of the counter and wandered into the cockpit, leaving her alone in the main part of the ship. As he pulled up holomaps and scrolled around the galaxy absently, he tried to ignore the occasional growl, whimper or deep sigh from outside the cockpit. The hum of the ship didn’t cover any of them and each one was harder for Caedus to shut out.

He knew that what she was dealing with was much worse though.


	9. Trophies

There were sixty-three planets in the Hapes Cluster. They had cleared seventeen of them of the Red Wake factions that were stationed there supposedly ready to cause trouble. They would go through the bases of operation that they would find on each one, looking for any information on where the actual headquarters of the group was. Unfortunately though, they hadn’t found anything yet.

Caedus’ new favorite thing to do was listen to the pirates say all sorts of horrible and disgusting things about him, their daughter and the “babe tagging along with him” -- and then present his disguised companion, introducing them to the Queen Mother of Hapes before killing them.

They were leaving Rynmar and Caedus programmed in the next destination that housed some of the Red Wake -- Stalsinek IV, a tip they got from an almost crushed datachip they found after clearing out their hideout on Rynmar. He went into the refresher, washed the dried blood from his face -- some his, some theirs -- and ran his wet fingers through his hair as he emerged into the common area, a smirk on his face that balanced between playful and vicious.

“Remember that time I visited the palace and used nothing but titles for you during my whole stay?” He asked this seemingly out of nowhere while standing at the counter, eating a leftover piece of glaze cake they had from their last visit to a proper city. “Would you like more caf, _Your Majesty_? Is your bath warm enough, _Esteemed Queen Mother_? Were you going to eat that last piece of bread, _Your Worship_?”

She was seated on the old couch with her legs pulled up under her, the simple, blue dress she had changed into standing out against the worn gray fabric of the furniture. Her gaze trailed up to him over the datapad she was looking at and she felt her lips curl into something like a smirk. Caedus had to be toying with her again. But she remembered alright. “Isn’t that one of _Jacen’s_ memories?”

Caedus didn’t answer her question, he only approached her and planted his hands on the table between them, leaning forward and lowering his voice. “ _Your Grace_ , do you need another blanket? Looking quite lovely today, _Your Highness_.” He shifted slightly, putting his elbows on the table and placing his chin in his hands, fingers tapping his cheeks in a lazy fashion. “ _How did that feel, Ereneda?_ ”

Stopping the flush she could feel creeping up her neck proved to be a useless fight once she realized her cheeks were already warm. She remembered that visit. And she remembered each one of those things he said and exactly what they were doing when he had originally said them. She found it interesting that he was pulling this from his mind all of the sudden, when he had been trying so hard to destroy every bit of Jacen Solo that was still drifting throughout him. She didn’t respond with anything but a shift of her gaze, moving it back down to the datapad she held.

The next day they took care of the base on Stalsinek IV, which was on the edge of a giant rainforest and only had six pirates stationed inside; they were fast work for the two of them. Caedus watched as she stepped over a body and began shuffling through stacks of flimsplast, pushing things she deemed useless away. She was more methodical and set on her goal with every planet in the Hapes Cluster that they stopped to search.

She picked up a comlink and found a recording on it. The words _Chume’da_ , _Gallinore_ and _transport_ were the ones they needed and he watched as she threw the comlink to the ground and crushed it under her boot before turning and moving up the hallway back to the humid air outside the base.

He followed, his gaze running up her spine. “You’re getting too good at this, _Your Majesty_. How does it feel?”

She didn’t say a word but he could sense the sudden tension through their connection. It almost felt like she was at war with herself. A feeling he recognized all too well.

Dropping her weapons on the table in the common area and pulling her jacket off, she froze for a moment afterwards and let the cool air that circulated through the ship slide over her skin, which was still covered in a sheen of sweat due to the humidity outside.

Caedus was beside her shortly thereafter, at her left side, his slick arm sliding against hers as he moved his hand to her head. She didn’t flinch anymore when his hands got close to her. His fingers pushed waves of her sweat-drenched hair behind her ear and his voice dropped to a whisper.

“It feels good,” he said, his lips brushing her skin. “Doesn’t it, _Ereneda_?”

Before she could react, she was reminded of Jacen Solo once more when she felt warm lips gently press against the soft spot under her ear -- something he always used to enjoy doing. She almost surprised herself when she didn’t pull away from Caedus.

What horrified her was that it did feel good. _All of it_.

 

* * *

 

Allana hadn’t been on Gallinore, but another lead and a new Personal Luxury Yacht 3000 had been. They took both of those things from the faction of Red Wake they cleared out on Gallinore, cleaning up the pirates in the morning and exploring their new ship in the evening on the way to their new lead -- Charubah.

She picked her cabin first, taking the closest one to the common area of the main deck, while Caedus studied the four that were left, finally settling on the one two doors down from hers. As they wandered around after setting their course, poking control panels and taking mental notes of where everything was, Caedus had passed the untouched private suite at the back of the upper deck. The suite was pristine, the decor blue and gold and the plush pillows on the bed seemed to invite him to use them -- which would’ve been welcome after sleeping on a somewhat hard bunk with a lumpy pillow for too long. He almost moved his bag into the suite, but refrained.

He hadn’t been in a bed like that since Hapes.

When she finally discovered the suite, she slowly moved into it, stepping up onto the main floor and watching small colored lights chase each other under the clear surface. Her hand lightly drifted over one of the the sturdy posts at the foot of the bed while her eyes traveled up gold swirls on the bedspread. She inhaled deeply, the scent of velanie flowers seeping in from somewhere around her. She had a life like this. She _had this_. But without Allana that life was nothing.

“Thinking of home?” Caedus leaned against the doorframe, his eyes locked on waves of red-gold.

Her head turned, her chin meeting her shoulder. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, arms crossed, shoulder against the frame, one black boot crossed over the other.

“That was never home.”

“Then where is...?”

She almost responded _Yavin IV_ , then cycled to the possibility of answering _Dathomir_ but finally settled on, “Nowhere.” A moment went by and her head turned back towards the bed as she amended her answer. “Anywhere Allana is.”

The silence that hung between them was thick and the sound that broke it was the clicking of Caedus’ boots on the clear surface of the floor as he stepped up by her side. The colored lights under it faintly danced on his skin as he turned his head to look at her, his gaze running up her profile. “You can take this room, if you want it. Wouldn’t want the _Queen Mother_ to--” He stopped when she turned to him, eyes narrowed.

“I don’t want it.”

He only had a chance to swallow his words before she spoke up again.

“And don’t call me that.”

“Tenel Ka?”

Her jaw clenched and her face fell. He could feel a wave of grief and... was that embarrassment? -- wash over her momentarily.

“Your Majesty?”

A glare.

“Your Worship?”

Her eyes shifted away from his, almost _rolling_ , as she inhaled and exhaled an impatient sigh.

“Ereneda?”

“Don’t call me anything.” She moved past him, their shoulders knocking into each other and her foot was ready to step down, out of the suite and back onto the upper deck when she heard his voice from behind her.

“Wait.”

“ _What?_ ” She didn’t turn around, she just waited for him to say what he wanted to say. She could sense him approaching her from behind, then felt his hands on her shoulders. His touch was soft, his fingers careful as he moved them to her hair, gathering it in a bunch and setting the bulk of it in front of her right shoulder.

A breath caught in his throat as he silently recalled their conversation in the cockpit of the old ship. What little conversation it had been. In his younger days, Jacen had kept a veritable zoo in his quarters at the academy and every animal and creature and insect he came across ended up adoring him -- it was like that for years.

There was _one_ , though, near the end of their time on Yavin IV.

It had been a viridian scaled lizard -- he only ever had one and she was small, but sleek and nimble and liked to hide from him. Her scales were extremely solid and thick and because of that she didn’t have many natural predators. He was unaware that when he caught her she was pregnant and returning to his quarters one night he found a second, much tinier viridian scaled lizard in the cage with her. Reaching into the enclosure to give her a comforting pet on the head, she snapped at him, taking a chunk of flesh from his finger and causing it to bleed what seemed like quite profusely for a wound of that size.

Jacen Solo had a habit of naming his animals in basic alphabetical order as he caught them -- starting over when he got to the end. When he caught the viridian scaled lizard, he had been on the letter _E_.

Caedus knew her choice had sounded familiar. And now he remembered why. The woman in front of him was protecting her baby and wouldn’t hesitate to take him out like the lizard had planned to do too, if he posed a threat.

His voice was a heated exhale across the nape of her neck.

“Can I call you Erida?”

Caedus counted the number of his heartbeats before her answer sounded. Six.

“ _Please_.”

The desperation he heard and sensed in that one word almost stunned _that part of him_ that he still possessed. When taking a name in this fashion you were supposed to be proud and you were supposed to feel powerful. Those feelings were there, but there was also something he felt when he took the name Caedus -- something _that part of him_ had felt. A desire to keep everything from there on out separate from everything you were before. The idea was to leave who you were behind because they were weak and couldn’t help you reach your goal, but he remembered some little voice in his head telling him to just _get rid of_ Jacen so that Jacen didn’t have to _deal_ with the horrors he would experience and commit. To Caedus, Jacen was weak. But _that part of him_ , that _Jacen_ that still resided somewhere in him, recognized exactly what that tone was that haunted her voice.

She didn’t want Tenel Ka to be associated with this.

There still needed to be a sacrifice and Caedus had a bad feeling he knew what _they both_ would have to go through for it, but he decided not to bring it up at the moment -- they had other things to focus on. The notification screens that were in multiple places on the ship stated that they were about ten minutes from Charubah.

“If neither of us are going to take this room then we should use it for something,” he said, gently pushing her out of the suite.

“What?”

“You heard me. There’s a holoscreen in here, we didn’t have one of those on the old ship. Maybe this can be the _theater_. The sofas looked nice. A sitting room, perhaps. We can’t let it go to waste. We did kill a lot of pirates for it.”

After the letdown of the small Red Wake faction on Charubah and feeding the new destination into the navicomputer, it only took three hours for the private suite to become a mess. The Red Wake faction they had destroyed on Charubah was dry of information, but a wealth of other things they took advantage of -- a weapons stash, a liquor stash and a jacket that Caedus was particularly fond of right when he laid his eyes on it.

She had to help him pull it off of the dead body that was still wearing it.

The private suite was littered with the dishes they used for the takeout they grabbed from Charubah; plates on the bed, glasses on three of the tables (as well as a broken glass on the floor) and a vibroblade in the arm of one of the sofas. Caedus sat on that particular sofa, taking swigs out of a bottle while slowly sinking into the cushion below him. He shifted slightly, still getting used to the snug, crimson jacket he procured that morning. He found himself enjoying all the _t_ _rophies_ they seemed to be collecting.

They hadn’t heard about the supposed upcoming riots from the Red Wake again in any of the recent transmissions. Caedus hoped though, that the Red Wake was getting _his_ message every time they found another one of their crews destroyed. Although, he supposed it was her message now too.

_Erida._

He gazed through hazy eyes to the bed where she was laying on her side atop the blue and gold blanket. She had drank three swigs of whatever was in the bottle he had, and then finished a piece of glaze cake before resting on the bed.

“I just need a second for the room to stop spinning,” she had said.

“Sure you do,” he had chided back. And then he watched as she fell asleep.

Reaching past the vibroblade in the arm of the sofa, Caedus set his bottle down on the end table and stood up on shaky legs, making his way to the bed where he leaned against it, one hand reaching out to steady himself with one of the posts. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her on his trek across the room and found he couldn’t. Her cheeks had been looking a little gaunt and her eyes had lightened a bit lately, but while she slept, she looked almost exactly like she always did on _Jacen’s_ visits to Hapes -- and later Caedus’ visits. Her expression was tranquil, not twisted into _Erida’s_ usual smirk he had now grown so used to, and her nightgown -- _her nightgown_ \-- he had been wondering why it looked so familiar.

It was the one Tenel Ka had worn when Jacen went to ask her for Hapan assistance during the Killik crisis. The one she was wearing when they were sitting on her balcony together eating sugared hwotha berries for dessert, where they first _spoke_ the words _I love you_ to each other out loud. The one she was wearing that he slid off of her and dropped on the floor later that night.

The side of the giant bed she was curled up on now was the same side she always slept on when he visited Hapes, and there it was closest to the balcony doors. He always liked that she slept on that side because the light from the moons always seeped in the room at an angle and a sliver of the glow used to cut across her body. Sometimes when he woke up in the middle of the night, he would watch her sleep, the moonlight hitting her face, her neck or her hips depending on how late in the night -- or early in the morning -- it had been.

“Stop,” he hissed to himself, to _that part of him_.

Pushing away from the bed, Caedus stumbled from the suite and headed to the main deck, where he entered his own cabin and pressed the control panel for the door to shut behind him, not bothering with the lights. Luckily, he found his bed with little issue, collapsing into it, his new jacket protesting audibly from all the shifting and he fell asleep almost instantly. But not before another whisper escaped him. “ _Stop._ ”


	10. A Pulse

They had a good lead. Trista & Taryn had updated her earlier, telling her that they had narrowed it down to sixteen planets -- where they had Allana was on one of sixteen planets out of sixty-three. She told them that she would take care of eight, if they would keep her updated on the other eight. 

After punching the coordinates for Daruvvia into the navicomputer, Erida had retreated to the interior deck of the luxury yacht and took advantage of something they hadn’t realized the ship even had until three days after they stole it. A jet-stream meditation pool. 

“Erida?” 

“In the pool,” she called back to wherever his voice had come from. 

A few seconds passed before he entered the chamber, took a few steps in, then retreated back to the doorway. “ _Sorry_.” He motioned to the pool she was floating in, her head the only part of her visible over the duracrete lip. Caedus realized his error when he stepped forward, caught a glimpse of one of her legs up to her thigh as she treaded water and remembered. Neither had proper attire for swimming so the pool had sort of just turned into a bath for them. 

He wasn’t sure if she was doing it on purpose or not, but she pushed herself out of the water a bit and rested her arm on the side to hold her up. Caedus found his gaze wandering up her arm and across her bare shoulders, dipping with her collarbone and moving up her neck. He could see drops of water falling from the ends of her hair. 

“It’s not like there’s anything in this pool that you haven’t seen before,” she deadpanned. 

Caedus smirked, mockingly repeating what she said and shook his head. His eyes trailed to the light gray duracrete between where he stood at the pool momentarily before shooting to her face. “Did you say we’re going to Daruvvia?”

“I did.” 

He nodded. 

“Why?” 

He delivered a shrug as his head continued to slowly nod. “I was just wondering, that’s all. I want to be able to check the planet off the list.” 

Erida began to nod with him. “Is that all then?” 

“I was also wondering when you’re going to be done in here because I checked the schedule and my turn in the pool started an hour ago.” 

“We don’t have a schedule.” 

The smirk returned. “Maybe we do and you just haven’t seen it.” 

With a slight roll of the eyes, Erida lowered herself back into the pool and turned around, leaving Caedus with a view of a messy copper bun, still dripping with water. The drops were falling onto the duracrete now and he found himself staring at them again. 

“So you’ll be out in the next ten minutes then?” 

He heard a noncommittal noise from her and shook his head before making his way to the galley, where he spent the next standard half an hour poking at random menus on the control panel of the top-of-the-line Gourmet Master 500 automated food processor and tasting what came out. When Erida came into the galley and stared at the mess of used dishes around him, she saw a head pop out from behind a stack of bowls, lightened eyes wide. 

“I didn’t really think you’d get out of the pool.” 

“You said you wanted--” 

“I was joking.”

Erida leaned over the table in front of him, peering at him between the stack of bowls and the food processor, planting her palm on the durasteel surface. She grew quiet and locked her light gray eyes with his fading brown ones. “Your jokes still leave a lot to be desired.” 

A deep laugh erupted from Caedus as he stood from his seat and moved away from the table, leaving the dishes where they were and passing her towards the galley exit. He froze in the door frame and turned around to see her staring at him. There was something in her face, in her stance -- in her eyes and slightest upturn of the corners of her lips. For a moment he saw Tenel Ka Djo again and not Erida. And it wasn’t Caedus who noticed that -- it had been _that part of him_. Jacen. He was the one catching all those little details and latching onto them. Caedus clenched his teeth and set his jaw, disappointed in himself for feeling his neck and face flush. Right when it hit, he backed out of the galley completely, calling out behind him after he turned around. 

“ _Now_ the truth comes out. I’ll have to work on them then.” 

Back in the galley, Erida stood by the table, her body shaking slightly. Her mind was still reeling over the fact that he said _he was joking_. Caedus never joked, even in that smarmy way that had been affecting all of his actions lately, _never_. That was _Jacen’s_ thing. Bad puns, horrible jokes, sarcasm, playful mockery -- they were all stages of Jacen’s sense of humor as he got older. Then on one of his visits to Hapes, he had _just stopped_. She had thought it was because he was stressed and exhausted with everything that was going on, but no. 

Erida would have paid no attention to it, rolled her eyes at his attitude, but _Tenel Ka_ , she caught it -- and as much as Erida tried to push the thought out of her mind, Tenel Ka was still a part of her. Thinking about it distracted her and that wasn’t what she needed while they were supposed to be focused on ridding the Hapes Cluster of the Red Wake and finding Allana, but with so much time spent alone on a ship with him -- her thoughts always made their way back to Tenel Ka. To Jacen. When she saw those glints of Jacen Solo, Erida didn’t want to catch them but Tenel Ka did. 

She wondered if Caedus was having the same problem, but he hadn’t been Jacen in so long that she figured it was an issue she had to deal with alone. 

The remains of a dollop of frosting from one of Caedus’ food processor experiments sat in the top bowl of the stack he had been obscured behind, and Erida ran her fingers across the fluff and tasted it, eyeing the food processor. She made a mental note to fiddle with it later -- maybe they could actually have a real meal instead of the bunches of easy-to-eat junk they stocked up on when they hit a town during planetside runs. 

Reaching her hand across for another swipe at the frosting, Erida suddenly stiffened, fingers inches away from the blue fluff. She could sense _something_ in her mind and she found herself focusing on their connection, discovering a slow and steady pulse, almost like a heartbeat. There were no words, no emotions, nothing except for the sound -- she could almost _feel_ it, like it was fighting her own actual heartbeat. 

Erida forgot about the frosting and quietly made her way out of the galley on bare feet, making sure her steps were light. She peered around, down the corridor on the main deck; she stuck her head in each of the five cabins, the cockpit and even crept up to the higher deck. The suite was empty too. And now the beat had gotten softer. 

When she made her way back to the main deck, the pulse had returned to the level it had been when she first felt it. The only place she hadn’t checked was the pool. He was joking about her having to get out, but maybe he did actually want to use it. _He could’ve just asked nicely_ , she mused, with a snicker. 

As she approached the entrance to the chamber, she felt the heat seeping out and snaking up her legs, creeping up under the robe she had put on when she had gotten out of the water earlier. She realized he must have turned the heat up slightly as she moved slowly through the entranceway, the empty pool ahead of her and a shuffling to her right. Turning, she saw Caedus’ head and neck as he leaned out of the refresher that doubled as a changing room in the corner. 

His eyebrows lifted expectantly. “Yes?” 

“What are you doing?” 

His expression was blank, as he shifted his gaze from her to the pool and back. “I’m getting in the pool? What does it look like I’m doing?” 

“No, I mean…” Even over the jets in the water, Erida could hear and feel the pulse in her head. She waited a few moments, nudging him mentally through their connection over the steadying beating. “ _That_.” 

Caedus felt her nudge through their bond and narrowed his eyes. He was feeling a pulsing too -- he wasn’t aware she was as well, but when the one in his head started, he assumed he was just feeling his heartbeat or a headache was creeping up on him. He only realized it had been coming through their shared thread in the Force when she touched him through it. 

His head disappeared back into the changing room for a few moments before he emerged, slowly and absently wandering out into the main area, eyes locked on the ground as his mind attempted to figure out what it was. Right when a bare foot hit the duracrete, the pulsing in his head sped up the slightest bit. Turning his head to Erida, he tilted his head and looked at her through a thin veil of steam. “It sped up.” 

She didn’t say anything. The pulse in her head was the same speed it had been before. The only thing different about her was how she had tensed up slightly when he came out of the refresher. Hopefully it hadn’t been visibly noticeable, but as soon as her eyes landed on those new scars that peppered his back and chest and the jagged one that ran down his thigh, originating from somewhere under the hem of his shorts, her jaw had set and her hand had shifted upwards, fingertips resting on her collarbone and arm pressing against where the two sides of her robe overlapped each other. 

Her mind had been running through why she had been feeling this beat, something that felt so much like a heartbeat, and she felt like she almost had something. It felt so familiar. Once it had been there for awhile it almost began to feel normal. As her thoughts meandered, and as Caedus slowly went out of focus fifteen feet ahead of her while her eyes locked on the ground, her fingers drifted away from her neck and her arm gradually lowered, letting her robe slacken. She didn’t notice, still lost in her head. 

Fifteen feet in front of her though, Caedus noticed. The top of her robe had parted slightly revealing the pale path of skin that ran between her breasts and the small birthmark that resided there. _Jacen_ noticed. 

That was when Erida snapped to attention, when the rhythm in her head suddenly sped up. That was also when it all hit her. 

She knew what was going on. She knew what it was. _Tenel Ka_ knew what it was and why it was all so familiar. 

Opening her mouth to say something, she hesitated, shook her head and pressed her lips together before turning and rushing out of the steam. 

Caedus almost called out to her before he saw her vanish down the corridor outside the chamber. He had figured out what the pulsing was almost at the same time she did -- he had remembered.  _Jacen_ had remembered.


	11. Admission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to think that if Tenel Ka had gotten to him in time and was able to spend time with him, he wouldn’t have fallen so hard, so fast and we would have gotten to see more inner turmoil on his part. His fall always just seemed too damn fast and convenient. D:
> 
> I also like angst. So. Angst ahoy! 
> 
> ( /stares at story
> 
> Also, come on you two stop this shiz and just make out~ )

They had said less than twenty words to each other for the three days and two planets that passed after the talk at the pool. They both noticed that it was affecting their efficiency as a team, but neither of them bothered to say anything to each other to stop it. Caedus went to sleep in his cabin those three nights, on his side facing the wall and his last thought each night before he drifted off was of Erida. Her nights were similar, but before her thoughts made it to Caedus, she would lay in her bed in the pitch black of the cabin and somehow they would wander specifically to Jacen. She could almost feel him behind her in the dark. _Tenel Ka_ could. 

After Sennex was programmed into the navicomputer, Caedus went up to the private suite for the holoscreen, thinking that watching something -- _anything_ \-- would keep his mind off of Erida. He realized that was impossible though, when he reached the upper deck and saw her in the suite, sitting on the bed, head tilted up and lights from whatever was on the holoscreen dancing across her features. 

“Are you going to be up here for a while?” He nodded to the holoscreen, finally breaking their conversational lull. 

“Was there something you wanted to watch?” She slid off of the bed and handed him the control, noticing his impending protest. “ _Take it_. I have been sitting here for four hours.” 

Caedus took the holoscreen control from her, his head turning with her as she passed him. “What are you gonna do?” 

After a small shrug and a sniffle she said, “Pool, probably.” 

Two hours passed and Caedus couldn’t remember a single fact or event from anything he had watched in that whole time period. His eyes had been glued to the holoscreen, but his mind was _away_ the whole time. Finally, when a commercial for a deluxe landspeeder came on, Caedus threw the control on the bed and stood up, shutting his eyes and focusing. When he opened his eyes, he could hear a faint beat in his head. 

And he followed it. 

As he strolled up to the entrance of the pool, he observed the steam that was escaping, tendrils of it reaching him and beckoning him further inside. She was seated on the edge of the pool with her back facing the door, a dark green towel wrapped around her form and her feet languidly swirling around in the water. His left boot made a scuffling noise across the duracrete and he felt the pulse in his head speed up. 

“Yes?” Her voice was clear over the jets of water in the pool ahead of her. 

“I… I was just…” Caedus didn’t finish his thought, he just planted himself on the ground behind her, his gaze traveling over her shoulders and into the knot she had once again tied her hair into. _That part of him_ kept pushing his attention to the nape of her neck. 

Ahead of him, Erida sat, eyes closed, listening to the pulse that was coming through their connection. She turned her head, her chin meeting her shoulder, and opened her eyes, her words silent to the human ear but as clear as the sky on Tatooine through their connection. 

_Why is your heart beating so fast?_  

When he heard those words in his mind, he noticed the pulsing he could sense was getting faster as well, slightly speeding up the closer he leaned towards her. He whispered into her ear. “Why is _yours_?” He lingered there, breathing in her scent and finding himself fascinated by the familiarity of her heartbeat in his head. 

Erida released a shaky sigh and turned her head back towards the water, leaving his face next to her mess of tied up hair. She knew why hers was beating so fast. She-- _Tenel Ka_ and Jacen had grown so close over the years and were so in tune with each other that they found they could almost always sense what the other wanted at the same time they sensed it themselves. Almost like a battle meld, except more personal. If Tenel Ka thought about grabbing a cloak off of the back of her desk chair before going out into the gardens and Jacen was closer to it, he’d pick it up for her. If Tenel Ka could feel that Jacen was in the mood for a drink while she was on her way back to the royal quarters from a meeting, she would swing by the kitchens and pick up exactly what he was craving. The connection had gotten so strong and the idea behind it so alluring that it crept into bed with them. Jacen knew where she wanted his hands or his lips almost before she did herself and Tenel Ka never needed words from him to know if what she was doing was driving him so wild that he wouldn’t be able to speak at all even if he tried. 

She had never really mentally registered that aspect of their connection, it had always just _been there_. 

Tenel Ka remembered the last few visits he made to Hapes before she lost him. The only thing she could sense that he wanted through their bond was his ultimate end goal of creating a peaceful future. Whenever he sensed her letting absent thoughts of losing him drift through their shared thread, he would wrap her up in his arms and tell her that _everything was going to be fine_ and _he loved her and Allana so much_. 

She could remember now, why she felt his heartbeat in her head. It had always been an underlying effect of this intriguing skill they had unintentionally created and cultivated together. It had become an almost distant memory when she began to lose him -- his heartbeat turning into a sound she felt she would never hear again, like her mother’s voice or Jacen’s laughter, and the feeling drifting to a place of sensations lost to time. It was a place locked away in her mind that kept the tactile recollections of Jacen’s fingers in her hair or how things had been when she had both arms. 

She remembered it all now -- their heightened connection. But she didn’t think he did. 

As her gaze followed one of the jet streams under the water, Erida tried to push Tenel Ka and the pulse of his heartbeat out of her system, but _that part of her_ wouldn’t quit, his heartbeat seemingly driving her to recall more -- like the ghost of his lips on the nape of her neck. Jacen always knew that was a sensitive spot for her, both ticklish and receptive to any attention he gave it. 

It was the exact moment that shadow of a memory snaked through her thoughts when he leaned in and lightly pressed his lips on the spot where the skin of her neck got lost in her hair, inhaling and exhaling against her for a moment afterwards before pulling back. 

Erida shut her eyes tight after he moved away from her, the fingers of her right hand curling around the lip of the pool. Was Caedus _still_ teasing what was left of Tenel Ka? Hadn’t he played that game and amused himself enough? She opened her eyes and turned, ready to admonish him for continuing this stupid game when there were so many other-- 

Caedus was seated beside her on her left with his boots off, his feet swirling around in the water next to hers. He would put his toes in front of one of the jets and try to push it against the pressurized spray, snickering in what looked to almost be a playful fashion when his foot got shoved away. He almost reminded her of the boy he had once been. 

Her mouth closed around the words she had been planning to say and she swallowed them, pursing her lips and observing him until he noticed her attention was on him. 

“Hey.” He leaned back, planting his open palms on the duracrete behind him and kicking his feet back and forth in the warm pool. Caedus took note of her expression as well as the slight confusion he could feel from her. “What?” 

“Why did you--” 

“Because you wanted me to.” 

“ _She_ wanted you to.” Erida shook her head quickly, turning to look back out over the water. “No, _she_ wanted _Jacen_ to.” 

_That part of him_ was mesmerized by the way the blue and purple lights in the pool made the reflection of the water look on her skin. It practically glowed while her eyes seemed to sparkle -- they reminded him of corusca gems. _That part of him_ also latched onto what she said, forcing Caedus to scoot closer to her, their shoulders brushing. 

“Maybe we give _them_ what they want,” he sighed sarcastically, as if doing such a thing would be a chore. He instantly felt her heart speed up. 

“Are you serious?” Erida found she couldn’t even look at him, her gaze staying locked on the water while she desperately willed away the tears she suddenly felt creeping up. Jacen had always been the only one who could stir this desperate of an emotion in her. “Why did I even get close to you again? You -- _Jacen_ \-- turned into a monster and _that savage_ has been tormenting me this whole time-- wearing the face of the man I loved. You turned _me_ into a monster and have been trying to rid me of every single trace of Tenel Ka -- surprise, _Caedus_. She’s never leaving me. There will always be traces of her no matter how hard you try, no matter how hard _Erida tries_. You might have been able to _slaughter_ every trace of Jacen inside you but I cannot do that to myself.” 

What terrified her, just as those words left her lips, was the fact that she might be on the way to doing just that to make sure her daughter was rescued and in safe hands. 

“And _now_? Now you want to use that bond -- you want to use _them_ as an excuse for you to _get me in bed with you_? Are you planning on using me for that too, _Caedus_?” 

He had already pulled his feet out of the water and was standing up, staring down at her, fading brown eyes wide and hands running down his face and stopping over his mouth. That wasn’t at all what--

“Get out.”

 “Wait, I--”

 “ _Get out._ ”

Her heartbeat was so loud and fast in his head and he could feel her anger clouding up their connection; he gently shut himself off from her so she didn’t have to feel his presence, let alone speak to him. His boots were forgotten as he backed out of the room on bare feet, duracrete to the plush carpeting in the corridor. 

The private suite was where he ended up, sitting at the end of the bed with his legs crossed and his eyes glued to the holoscreen. He wasn’t registering anything he was watching, much like the previous time he had been sitting in that exact spot. His fingers were fidgety and he found himself playing with the cuffs of his gray pants that he had rolled up before sticking his feet in the water. Another commercial for a different kind of landspeeder played. Or was it the same one? His head absently shook back and forth and his mind practically shut off. He didn’t know. It could have been. 

He forced himself to look at the notification screen along the east wall of the suite. Sixteen hours until they could disembark on Sennex. It made him wonder briefly, if it would be another three days before they really talked again. 

Caedus fell backwards into the middle of the bed, onto the blue and gold bedspread, long legs hanging off the end and his gaze tracing patterns in the ceiling for only a few moments before he began to doze off.

“I am sorry.”

He was pulled from his daze and snapped upright to face a silhouette in the doorway. She stepped into the suite, her right hand clutched around a handful of fabric from the deep red skirt she wore. Caedus could see her toes peeking out from the bottom and a sliver of skin from her midsection where her top didn’t completely reach the waist of the skirt. She looked comfortable except for the tension he saw marring her features.

“Why are you apologizing? Everything you said was true. Except… except the bit about me just using the idea of _who we used to be_ to get in bed with you. I… damn it…” Caedus shook his head, dropping his chin to his chest.

She took note of the way he referred to Jacen and Tenel Ka as _who we used to be_ instead of completely different entities from them. When he slid himself off of the bedspread and motioned her over to the sofa that still had a vibroblade in the arm, she sat on one end while he took up the other.

“I keep telling myself Jacen’s _gone_ and he’s _not there_ and I _destroyed him_ but I can’t do it completely. He was buried _so far_. And when I wanted you to come with me to find Allana, I thought I was still angry enough regarding your turn on me. I didn’t worry _at all_ about Jacen digging his way out of the mental grave where I buried him. It wasn’t part of my plan at all. I disregarded him completely.”

A hand went to his face, where he began to gnaw on his nails in between sentences. It was a bad habit he had once had -- _Jacen_ had once had -- and Erida realized, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she hadn’t seen him do it since they were training at the academy on Yavin IV.

“When I saw you in the palace spire that day and you told me what happened to Allana I got so _angry_. And of course, I… _Caedus_ , wanted to blame it on you because you were the enemy just like everyone else had been. But Jacen was already there, at the front of my mind. He wanted to _kiss the tears off of your face_.” Caedus exhaled something that might have passed for a disgusted chuckle.

Erida’s features softened the slightest bit at his words. That sounded like Jacen.

“And I keep… I keep justifying actions and thoughts -- kissing your tears, marveling at your heartbeat through this… connection, staring at your lips or your legs or just _you_ for a longer-than-acceptable time, remembering… extremely intimate moments -- I always blamed it on Jacen. It was always just that _stupid weakling_ and all of his messy _leftover_ _emotions_.” He turned to face her and pulled his leg up on the sofa. “But I was lying to myself. Jacen missed you, _I_ missed you. All of me… missed everything about you. The only time I could ever sleep was when I was beside you.”

Caedus finally stopped biting at his nails and pressed his fists into the cushion ahead of him to keep himself from doing it again.

“So… you don’t need to apologize. But…” After a shaky inhale and an attempt to press his fists further into the cushions, he locked his eyes with hers. “Just know that I didn’t and don’t just _want to use you for that_. I still find myself feeling like I did when I visited Hapes. I need… I need to be near you. I need to be near you or I don’t sleep and can’t think straight. Even if I wasn’t next to you, I always needed to know that you would be there -- and I always knew you were. So when you turned your back on me, I… I _really_ wanted Jacen gone then.”

He felt her hand cover one of his and chewed on his lip for a few heartbeats before speaking again, his voice lower than before.

“But I can’t do it. I can’t get rid of him completely. So I’m stuck, fighting a war with myself when I should be fighting the _real_ war for the galaxy and finding Allana. Now you’re in this with me and you know how it feels and I’m _so sorry_.”

Slipping his hand out from under hers, he stood from the couch and made his way over to the door, stopping to look over his shoulder at her.

“Just know, that I -- Jacen, Caedus, _every part of me_ \-- with everything I have…” He trailed off, went through a few deep breaths and shook his head, wandering out of the suite.

His murmur of, “ _I can’t keep doing this to you_ ” hadn’t reached her ears over the feeling of his heart pounding _violently_ in her head.

And above where she sat, on the wall, the holoscreen played that same landspeeder commercial.


	12. Strength

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I APOLOGIZE for the delay on this. I ending up going crazy and slamming down a short story (lol "short" -- it was supposed to be short and ended up being way longer than I thought) called Fixate after I posted the last chapter. I had a couple sentences written for a very long while but for some reason it all came to me and I had to suddenly get the whole thing out and post it. So there was that and then there was a bunch of other junk going on so I hadn't had a good chance to get the next post up here in a decent amount of time which I am sorry for! D:
> 
> (I am also working on a fanmix/playlist to match this story so look for that soon, hehe. I love putting music with things I write. I like putting music to everything, really.)
> 
> Anyways, in this chapter: EMOTIONS! And stuff.
> 
> (THANK YOU FOR DEALING W/ ME AND MY WEIRD UPLOAD SCHEDULE AND THIS CRAZY STORY~ <3)

Thirteen hours until they could disembark on Sennex.

Caedus was in his cabin working off his nervous energy and the anger he felt _towards_ that energy by going through a set of exercises he did on the _Anakin Solo_ when he woke up every morning. Or evening. Whenever he woke up -- a full sleep cycle, a nap -- anything.

He was mumbling to himself, cursing himself for being so weak. This was not how he was planning for this mission to go. Jacen had ruined everything, just like he usually did -- that’s what Caedus kept telling himself. He didn’t want to admit that wasn’t the case though. Caedus was Jacen -- he was Jacen wrapped so tightly and smothered so hard by the shroud that was Caedus that he seemed like a shell of his former self.

He had been in the middle of a sit-up, feet hooked under the bunk and hands behind his head, when he sighed and dropped his back against the floor. The sheen of sweat on his skin didn’t agree with the carpeting under him and his eyes closed against the glow panels on the ceiling above him.

There was no getting around it. He couldn’t keep telling himself it was Jacen’s fault. Anything he did that was _human_ was not _Jacen’s fault_.

Rolling over, Caedus pushed himself to his feet and grabbed a change of clothes, preparing to head to the pool to use the shower in the refresher there -- it was the biggest one on the ship next to the shower in the private suite and he didn’t want to bring his issues back to her if she was still up there. He was trying to process it all himself -- he had already gotten her in the middle of too many things.

As he was about to exit his cabin, Erida appeared in the doorway. Both of them jumped slightly, startled at the sight of each other -- their connection had been quiet, shut off, so neither one had been aware of the other’s location.

She pointed to the screen on the wall next to the control panel for the door of his cabin.

“I was going to leave you a message here… but…” Her finger shifted targets to him instead of the screen in the wall where she had been planning to leave new information. “You are here so… Trista and Taryn left me a transmission earlier. I told them when I should be on Sennex and they said they should have an update on their end by then. About the planets they were checking.” Even as she said the last word, she was already out of view of the door, figuring he didn’t want to deal with company.

“Erida,” he called, stepping out into the corridor.

Her back was to him for a few moments before she slowly spun around to face him. He knew what she wanted to say -- wanted to _ask_ , he could see it in her face, and he stalled in the hallway, roughly two doors down from where she stood, waiting for her voice. She opened her mouth, which silently worked around different words before settling on the simplest and most straightforward question.

“What were you about to say earlier? Before you rushed off out of the s--”

“ _I love you._ Jacen, Caedus -- all of it. Me. All of me. I love you. All of you. Always have. I always will.” He blurted this out, cutting her off, figuring if he didn’t say it now, he _wouldn’t_ and then they’d ignore each other for another three days. Maybe more. Something that would put Allana in even more danger.

She didn’t say anything after that and he waited only a few moments before he clutched the ball of clean clothes tighter in his left hand, tilted his head and said, “That’s all.” He moved towards her, turned slightly so he could pass her without knocking into her or touching her at all, and headed towards the pool.

Caedus threw his clean clothes on the bench next to the shower, the bright yellow-tinted lights that hung from the tall ceiling of the refresher causing the hand that let go of the clothes to drift to the control panel next to the entrance, his finger sliding the lights down to one of the dimmest settings. He pulled his shirt off over his head and dropped it on the cold ground, a hand brushing through the dark brown hair that fell into his face from the movement, and then he attempted to move towards the shower and strip his pants off at the same time, almost tripping as he stepped out of them. With a string of curses under his breath, he fiddled with the controls beside the shower -- adjusting the temperature, water pressure and stream type -- then slid the door open, slipping in and shutting it behind him. The level he set the lights at didn’t allow them to reach the inside of the shower, leaving only a dim glow around his body. His eyes had to adjust to the light and even when they did he couldn’t see the stream of water in front of him -- he paid that no mind though and just moved forward until he felt the heat of the water falling over his body, shutting his eyes as it did. A sigh sounded over the heavy patter of the water stream, the liquid running around his pursed lips and dripping from his chin.

He picked up another sound over the steady beating of the water -- a constant pulse, quickening slightly with each moment that passed.

Lightened brown eyes snapped open and Caedus turned his head towards the slit between the wall and the door of the shower, dim yellow light seeping in through the crack. Leaning back, out of the water, he shut his left eye and peeked through the gap with his right. Everything looked the same as it did when he got in the shower, except for the silhouette that he spotted near the entrance of the refresher -- the same one that had woken him up in the private suite earlier after he had dozed off.

He slowly opened the door a bit, sticking his head and right shoulder in the space he created, swallowing anything he wanted to say or thought he would say the next time he saw her -- all he could do was stare. When she stepped further into the refresher, the dim light spilled across her face and he could make out her full lips and thin brows.

Her heart was hammering in his head as she ambled up to the shower door, blocking out what little light was glowing in the refresher and he opened his mouth to ask her what she wanted when she answered before he could get the question out. Her fingers slid up his neck and into his wet hair, where she cradled the back of his head and pulled him down to her, pressing her lips against his. Caedus could feel his own heart in his chest and was fairly certain that was what she was hearing in her head as he braced his left hand on the shower door and his right on the wall, only letting his head hang out of the shower.

“What?” She whispered, when she pulled back from him and glanced down to his awkward position.

“I don’t want to get you wet,” he responded, peering down to the same top and skirt he had seen her in earlier.

One of those thin brows arched as she carefully pulled her hand away from him. “Alright, then.”

“No, I--” Caedus stopped, running back over his words and recognizing the look in her eyes. _That part of him_ recognized the look in her eyes.

Erida said nothing, she just turned on her heel and wandered out of the refresher, her heartbeat growing softer in his head. He had forgotten what that felt like -- the way their connection practically lit up when they were physically close to one another and sparked a fire when they touched. They hadn’t been as open to each other since before Tenel Ka had turned on Caedus, and now that he had said what he said to her and she had come into the refresher with the intention of getting his attention, _which she had_ \-- the flare in their connection exploded.

Slamming the control panel for the water stream, Caedus stumbled out of the shower and grabbed a towel, holding it around his waist as he left the refresher and entered an empty pool chamber. Following the pulse in his head, that he noted almost matched the one in his chest, he jogged out into the corridor, leaving wet footprints on the carpet as he went.

He reached out, searching for her presence, and heard an old Dathomirian lullaby being hummed from above him. Erida was moving along the upper deck over his head and he wasted no time in jumping in the repulsorlift and repeatedly jamming his finger against the control panel, bolting out of the lift when the door opened. She was leaning against the railing of the upper deck, near the entrance to the private suite, and he moved towards her, drops of water still falling from his body.

“So you decided to--”

Caedus didn’t let her finish, he secured the towel around his waist and then grabbed her face in his hands, his lips hungrily seeking out hers. He could feel her hand pressed against his chest, sliding down his damp skin, slipping around his midsection and tugging him away from the railing as they kissed.

The warmth that spread through their connection was quick, a rush of passionate energy -- and when she announced to the suite to set the lights at 15% and then pushed him backwards onto the blue and gold bedspread, he almost felt lightheaded. They used to feel like this together all the time; every one of his visits to Hapes had moments like these. Their gazes would meet for a moment during the day and something would spark in their systems, their fingers would graze against each others while they were playing with Allana in the gardens and a surge of affection would slip through their bond  -- then later when they were alone, their minds were in a constant state of euphoria, their hands, lips, and bodies not parting for some indeterminate amount of time. Naturally, it felt amazing physically, but it was never _just_ physical; on top of that was the sensation it started in their connection, an overwhelming intensity, hovering just on the edge of something animalistic that pushed them to their absolute limits.

Caedus recalled the first few times Jacen and Tenel Ka had made love and didn’t know how to control or react to any of it. He remembered not being able to breathe afterwards and he remembered his mind absolutely blanking -- not as though he forgot any of it, but he found that he couldn’t think coherently or focus on anything for some time except her. His mind was a blank slate and all he could hear in his head was a monotone crackling noise like a dead comlink. She had been affected similarly -- they had talked about it once they _could talk again_ and he remembered watching her trying to get out of bed and having to lean against it before she could move. She had told him she almost blacked out.

He was feeling _that_ again. That arousing high he experienced when they touched. Her heartbeat hammered in his head and when she slid on the bed next to him and he pulled her into his arms, he could feel her heartbeat in her chest, the two syncing up perfectly. Caedus didn’t think it could speed up anymore but when he reached down and slipped his hand under her long skirt, running his fingers up her leg, it managed to quicken. It drove him to press his lips against hers once more.

His right hand slid against her leg, his fingers putting pressure on her inner thigh and he used his grip to pull her on top of him. He could hear her make a noise against their kiss, something that went from a satisfied hum to a quiet but content exhale as their lips parted.

Their eyes met in the dim light of the room, the multi-colored glow from the clear floor around the bed surrounding them in a kaleidoscopic haze. Her hand was tucking wet strands of dark brown hair behind his ear as she lounged on top of him and he still had a hand under her skirt, finger dancing along the skin of her thigh, while the other slowly moved up and down her back. Caedus felt like he was staring into the eyes of the Queen Mother again. Collected, full of life -- the dim lighting made them appear a stormy gray.

“Jacen,” she whispered, her voice full of wonder in one simple word.

That part of him nodded earnestly. _He_ nodded.

With no hesitation, her lips were on his again, their bodies shifting on the bedspread. He slowly moved back towards the pillows at the head of the bed and she followed, their lips never breaking apart. It didn’t even register to Caedus that his towel had slid off of him when he shifted until he felt the velvet of the comforter hit his backside and that was when he slid his hands up under her top. “You are severely overdressed for this occasion, _Your Majesty_.”

Her eyes flashed momentarily, as if Erida was protesting the use of the term, but that split-second passed and she assisted him by wiggling out of her top when he pulled it. She turned over, sitting on the bed with her bare back to him as she slid her skirt off and froze for a moment when she felt him slowly drag his pursed lips straight up her spine, ending that motion with a lingering kiss at the nape of her neck. Her shock definitely registered between them because it was only a moment later when she felt him breathing into her ear. “I _know you_. I’ve always known you.”

Erida’s thoughts went to the kiss he had planted behind her ear so long ago when she had been struggling with herself after one of the Red Wake raids and within two rushed heartbeats his lips were at the soft patch of skin there, a slow kiss and a heated breath hitting it before a smile seized her lips and she turned to face him. Every thought she had was followed almost instantly with his excited compliance, and between his heartbeat in her mind and his fingers drifting to places on her skin that he hadn’t touched in far too long, her head was swimming.

He was seated at the head of the bed, his back against the numerous, plush pillows that rested there and she crawled into his lap and shifted until her knees were planted on either side of him. Slightly leaning down, she rested her hand on his cheek and kissed him intently, his lips returning the motion just as starved while his palms softly pressed against her sides. When they were training at the academy, there was a point where their hands were the same size -- now his hands were much larger than hers and his whole hand, fingers spread, could span almost all the way up her side from her waist to where her arm joined her shoulder.

Caedus’ right arm shifted around her, his palm holding the nape of her neck and his fingers splaying out into the copper tangles of hair around them, while his lips pulled away from hers and left a trail of ardent kisses down her neck. With a hand cradling her head and the other pressed against her back, he deliberately ran his tongue over the birthmark between her breasts, his eyes snapping up to her face as he did. He could almost feel her melt in his grasp, which his hands had been prepared for, and when she sunk back down, their faces inches apart again, he murmured in her ear once more. “I know you.

“Mmmhmm,” she responded, tilting her head and leaning into the crook of his neck. Her hand drifted between their bodies, where she let her fingers skate back and forth over one of his hip bones. A pointed and hot exhale across his collarbone preceded her tongue, which ran over that and then up his neck where she breathed against his cheek,  “Don’t act like I don’t _know you_ too.” Her lips upturned as she felt his exhales coming out in shudders against her shoulder.

With the growl of a wild animal, Caedus moved forward. The motion was so fast that she slid from his lap and landed on her back, her skin against the blue and gold velvet, and he was hovering over her in a split second. Her hand moved, palm pressing up against his chest, fingers tracing the scars on his skin there. Scars she had never touched before, as Erida or as Tenel Ka. They had to be painful when they were originally created, but she didn’t feel pain from him when she touched them now, she only felt a sort of lazy pleasure -- a general feeling of contentment at the fact that she was touching him.

It was something he never thought he would experience again after the Queen Mother of Hapes turned on him.

He hadn’t realized how much he needed her -- or he realized it and didn’t want to admit it. Caedus would never admit defeat or failure. And admitting to himself that he needed her support, her presence and her touch was defeat.

He welcomed defeat with open arms at this moment in time. Watching the multi-colored flickers of light dance over her naked skin, feeling her fingertips delicately chart shapes around old injuries and catching her gnawing on her lower lip as she stared up at him, Caedus accepted defeat.

“I missed you,” he whispered.

“I missed you too,” Erida responded, pulling him down against her.


	13. Allied

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is doing well! <3 
> 
> I have a playlist I've started on Spotify for this story and as of right now it has 57 songs on it, hehehehehe. I'm going to rearrange it and add/take away some and when I post the next chapter I'll share the link if anyone wants to listen! It's music that inspired the story, music I listened to while writing it and some of it is music I think fits somehow? I DON'T KNOW. XD

When Caedus rolled over and opened his eyes, he saw the rainbow colors from the floor casting a mess of different hues on the ceiling and through them, the notification screen. Disembarking on Sennex in one hour.

Rolling to the edge of the bed, he grabbed the towel that had fallen off of him before everything he faintly thought was a dream and stood, wrapping it around his waist and padding on bare feet out of the private suite, following the faint Force signature of the woman he had been sleeping beside for some number of hours before.

He could hear her talking in the communications station near the cockpit and found himself stopping outside of the entrance, bare back to the bulkhead. Since the day they had stolen the ship, communications with Trista and Taryn had been visual, and he figured Tenel Ka’s best friend that she turned on because of his moral choices strolling in wearing only a towel wouldn’t be the most welcome thing.

“It’s Millinar. She’s on Millinar. The base is there,” Taryn’s voice drifted into his ears.

“Good. They are not planning on moving her soon, are they? Do you know?”

“T, you’re not coming straight here?”

“No.” The silence that hung in the air for a few moments dripped with unspoken inquiries and surprise -- Caedus could feel it from both twins. “I have _business_ on the other planets I haven’t had a chance to check.”

“Are… you… we’ve heard our bosses talking here. It’s been on the holonews even-- about the Red Wake’s numbers. Are you... _are you the one who's been emptying the Red Wake bases_?”

 _I’ve had some help_ , Caedus could hear the words echo in his head as Erida thought them.

“ _Possibly_. Look, I want to rid the cluster of the Red Wake for good. And if I get to make them suffer for taking my daughter from me along the way then _so be it_.”

Her cousins stayed silent. Caedus couldn’t see their faces on the holographic transmission, but he could picture their expressions. He could _feel_ their shock, even planets away.

“If you can find Allana and talk to her without them finding out, tell her you’re there with her. Tell her she’ll be out of there and safe soon.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” They both said.

Caedus could hear the holoterminal cut off and moments later he watched as Erida passed him. He pushed off the wall to follow her. “So, Millinar?”

“Millinar,” she repeated, stopping and turning around to face him, mild surprise passing over her features when she saw him still clad only in a towel. “Good morning.”

“Did we really sleep for ten hours?”

“Yes,” she said. He swore he caught a sparkle in her eye as she managed to drag her gaze up from the towel to his face. “Did you forget how exhausting _certain activities_ always were for us?”

He laughed. It sounded just like Jacen’s laugh had what seemed like eons before.

“ _Almost_. You say exhausting like it’s a bad thing though.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I’m going to go take a shower, actually get clean this time and then we’ll _take care_ of Sennex.”

Erida watched him as he wandered back towards the repulsorlifts, her gaze traveling down his spine and settling on a scar near the small of his back -- Tenel Ka remembered that one. Jacen had slipped off of a wet rock on Yavin IV when they were younger and hit his back on the outcropping. She felt a tug at the corner of her lips and waited until the repulsorlift had vanished to the upper deck before she headed to the storage area near the hatch to check on the status of their usual planetside weapon haul.

Twice over she checked blasters and counted thermal detonators, and then realized her thoughts had wandered to what they had been taking part of for the past _too long_. Caedus had told her about Lumiya’s teachings -- he told her about how becoming a Sith meant sacrificing something you loved. She kept mentally avoiding this issue, but her mind would always circle back to it.

Once she had packed the duffel bag they always hauled with them on their visits to the Red Wake’s factions, Erida found herself in the small refresher on the other side of the hatch, opposite the storage area. A mouthful of dry air attempted to make its way down her throat as she gulped, locking gazes with her reflection. Her eyes, which seemed to always have dark circles under them now, were almost silver, thin jagged forks of orange reaching out like claws from her pupils. Her cheekbones, usually prominent because of her Hapan blood, stood out even more than normal and her skin had grown pale.

Allana couldn’t see her like this.

Her intense need for Allana to be safe, away from these _things_ who had taken her from Tenel Ka, had turned her into the exact beast she had abandoned Jacen for becoming. He had wanted Allana to be safe too. Now their joint need for her to be somewhere protected was building, intertwining with their anger at the Red Wake and driving them both through a sick threshold from which there may be no return.

They would have to give Allana to someone safe.

They weren’t _safety_ anymore.

That would be their sacrifice.

“Hey, you alright?” A deep voice called from behind her.

“I am fine,” Erida said, almost instantly, grabbing the duffel bag from where she had set it after packing it and throwing it over her shoulder.

Caedus had picked up on most of the things she had been mentally running through while he showered and got dressed, but didn’t say anything past asking if she was alright. He knew bringing all of that up now wouldn’t help them focus on the Red Wake stationed on Sennex.

When he turned back to where she had been, to ask her if she was ready to go, she was already at the bottom of the ramp.

 

* * *

 

Farnica had been a bust, as had Sennex. They knew what planet Allana was on, so they didn’t need to search for that specific bit of information anymore (the most important one), but they at least hoped for some good things to bring back with them -- especially after the constant all bark and no bite they were getting from the so-called pirates.

_“Boss’ll get you. It’ll be bloody, too.”_

_“Death to the royal family!”_

_“You’ll have to watch each other die slowly and that’s all you both deserve.”_

The same kind of spiel on each planet. Caedus actually yawned when the leader of the Farnica base tried to give him a speech. It hadn’t even been a sarcastic _let’s-get-moving_ kind of yawn. It was an actual _needs-a-real-sleep-cycle_ yawn.

Since the reawakening of some sort of relationship neither of them could define, their work as a team became swift and brutal. It had been like the two of them were in battle on Myrkr, synchronous in a way that only two people who had been training together -- and who cared deeply for each other -- for years could be. On Myrkr, Jacen Solo had burned one of Tenel Ka’s braids off with his lightsaber when he had spun around and stopped the blade inches from her face to interrupt a thudbug that was about to meet her cheek. She hadn’t flinched, she hadn’t panicked, she knew everything that was going on because she could sense it through their bond as it happened.

Their teamwork had strengthened to a familiar level, and their intimacy was easily reestablished but permeated with an unsettling habit -- a _high_ almost -- where they would find themselves rushing to touch each other after decimating a base. Caedus, especially. Seeing the woman he had watched give up on him stand beside him now, cutting down Hapan pirates and wiping their blood from her face like it was a simple sheen of sweat -- the way it made him feel would have horrified Jacen. It _d_ _id_ horrify Jacen, still buried inside Caedus but cognizant enough to witness it and _feel_ it.

Tenel Ka had always been a princess to him -- a queen -- and even before he had known of her royal heritage, teenage Jacen Solo had been ready to worship the ground she walked on, even though she would have openly scoffed at the notion. She had become the _people’s_ queen during the war with the Yuuzhan Vong. She had become the _royal we_.

That hadn’t stopped Jacen Solo though, who was still her most loyal follower, and as they grew closer after the war he would make cracks about how he was the only “suitor” who could satisfy her. “Not even a Hapan,” he would snicker, while his fingers traveled down the closures of one of the numerous gowns she despised.

Erida, who seemed to want to keep the Queen Mother of Hapes as far removed from this ordeal as she could, was still his queen -- _Caedus’_ queen now. And he still enjoyed being the only one who could satisfy her.

After Farnica was checked off, Maires was punched into the navicomputer and the two of them made their way to the private suite, peeling off clothes stained with dried blood on the way. They showered together, watching the red from their own fresh, trivial injuries and the red from their enemies’ very last injuries mix and get washed down the drain. Caedus was mindful of the shallow slash on her shoulder, a bit of damage just received on Farnica, as he nudged her against the wall of the shower, taking pleasure in the way the cool marble caused her back to arch. Her heart was going wild in his head, some of the energy from the battles that took place planetside still lingering, and he pushed it even further, letting his fingertips drift all over her skin, consciously slowing down and putting pressure on places he knew were sensitive before finally letting his fingers slide between her thighs. His hands knew her body so well that he could visually focus on her face, where he leaned in, anchored his gaze on her fiery eyes and turned his left cheek towards her. That way, he could watch her, hear any noise she managed to make and feel her breath hitch against his skin.

Erida had to be carried from the refresher to the bed afterwards, where Caedus set her down and grabbed a nightgown she had left at the foot of the bed. “Do you want to get dres--”

“Nnnhhh,” was all she responded with, still catching her breath and collecting some semblance of coherent thoughts, clumsily turning on her side as she did so.

“Sounds good to me,” Caedus said, tossing the clothing to the ground.

Rounding the bed, he crawled in and slipped under the covers, throwing them over her as well. He studied the curves of her body as the sheets softly settled over them and once he pried his eyes away, he grabbed the control for the holoscreen and turned it on, pulling her closer to him with his other arm. The sudden skin-to-skin contact filled their connection with a warm gratification, as if the touch caused them to subconsciously recall some of the more fervent instances of tactility between them.

With a contented hum, Caedus began flipping channels, coming to a stop on the holonews. He had been so set on saving Allana and making her captors suffer, that he let his grip on the rest of his plan slip. The holonews was overwhelming, things seemed to be failing, crashing and burning -- Caedus wasn’t surprised. His plan for the good of the galaxy and his daughter living in a place where she could grow up safely would all be for nothing if Ta’a Chume’s disgusting army of pirates had their way. If Allana died now, then there would be no reason for continuing. The Jacen Solo in him disagreed -- the _good of the galaxy_ was the main issue. Caedus’ galaxy though, that was Allana and the Queen Mother of Hapes.

And if they weren’t safe then nothing was.

Tuning it all out was frighteningly easy for him and he shook his head at the holoscreen, flipping the channel to an obviously rigged game show with a loud Twi’lek host. That was better. It was _bad_ , but it was more amusing than the holonews.

Caedus gently set the holoscreen remote on the nightstand next to him, careful not to make too much noise or movement, and retrieved the datapad next to it. It was an old beat up model, one he had owned for years -- since _Jacen_. It took a few minutes to start up and bending his knees and planting his feet on the bed allowed him to set the booted up device against his thighs. That way he could use his free hand to control it and his other hand could continue its absent and lazy motion -- twirling Erida’s hair around his fingers.

Ignoring the holonews pop-ups (since he had already seen _that mess_ on the holoscreen), he moved his pointer finger in five deft swipes and presses, opening a file he had started shortly after Allana was born.

It was a screen full of tally marks, a wall of digital lines that would look like nothing to others, but something Caedus understood all too well and was grossly fascinated by. He added eight, saved the file and then shut the device down, placing it back on the nightstand. His attention floated to the game show, but nothing registered -- he fell asleep within minutes anyways, his last image before dozing off was of the notification screen.

Disembarking on Maires in fourteen hours.


	14. Decisions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK 94759847230537405874378.34 YEARS FOR AN UPDATE D:
> 
> Everything has been a hot mess for a good while and I miss my silly Jedi children and I want to write more with them and I really want to write more in general kjlsdaf;jsdkjfsdak;fl AHHHHHH
> 
> Anyways, speaking of hot messes, here's the next chapter of this one! :D
> 
> ( And here's a playlist too!: https://open.spotify.com/user/hexterah/playlist/4EuTxlGHsUK5NLfuk9pf9J?si=I22kBQ5DS6qP6ISquYaQXQ )

She was the only one he would never again correct when the name Jacen slipped from her lips, whether she was calling him over to look at something through the viewport of the stolen ship or breathlessly whispering in his ear while he had her pressed up against one of the bulkheads with his hands under her shirt and his tongue running up her neck.

“Jacen,” she said, as she sat herself on the lip of the pool, legs of her jumpsuit rolled up and bare feet breaking the clear surface. He could hear the worry in her voice without even having to pick up on her emotions through the Force.

Ripples traveled through the water as he turned to face her, disappearing under as he swam to the side, emerging between her ankles. As he absently locked his arms over her feet, flinching slightly as a jet of water hit his hip, he turned his face up to her, waiting for her to continue. Trails of light that reflected off the water bathed her cheeks in a neon glow and he found himself entranced by the colors, only snapping to attention when he heard her voice.

“What are we supposed to do?”

“About what?”

Her brow furrowed.

Caedus knew what she had been asking about, but he had hoped the conversation could be delayed a little longer. He didn’t have an answer. A logical one, anyways. “About us and… Allana. Afterwards. Right?”

“Yes.” The word came out in an exhale and he could barely hear it over the pool around him. He could hear her heartbeat though, increasing in speed ever-so-slightly as the discussion began.

“I wish I had a good answer.” He grabbed onto the small portion of the edge of the pool that showed between her legs, holding himself there and absently bumping his toes into the wall underwater. “If I had my way… I’d take you both somewhere where no one would find us. We could live in a little house at the edge of some woods, Allana could collect pets--”

“Like what you showed me when you asked me what would happen if I didn’t want to return to Hapes?”

Caedus remembered the house, the two of them dancing in the bedroom upstairs, him napping on the couch with Allana. He had been using that vision against her, in a perverse way, but when he thought of it now, he realized it had been something he subconsciously had wanted. Since _Jacen_ had always been there, hovering within him.

“Yeah, just like that,” he said.

The fingers of her right hand drifted through his hair and he shut his eyes, enjoying her touch and the burst of energy it created in their bond. The verbal silence from both of them lasted for some time, as they both mentally ran through ideas and possible plans, but it was finally broken when Caedus brought up the topic he knew they had both been dreading. “That’s it. That’s our sacrifice.” He could feel her hand shaking in his hair and reaching up with a wet hand, he intertwined his fingers in hers and pulled them to his lips, planting a kiss on her knuckles. He could see her attempting to say multiple things and stopping, finally letting out an exasperated sigh and shifting her gaze to the transparisteel that lined the top edge of the chamber. “Come here,” he murmured, tugging at her hand momentarily before letting go.

The ball of his right foot pushed against the wall of the pool and Caedus floated further out into the water, motioning to her. Even from there he could see her whole body was shivering. While she peeled her jumpsuit off, he moved his fingers, pointing them at the control panel for the pool and with a flick of the wrist, he turned the heat of the water up and switched on the jets on the far side. Flattening his feet against the bottom of the pool, he held his arms open to her and pulled her into them, wrapping her up. The water rose to his neck and he knew if she tried to stand, the water would be just about at her eye level or over. She was still shivering and he kept his arms around her so she wouldn’t have to exhaust her energy treading water.

“She can’t see what we’ve become.”

“I know.” Caedus kept one arm wrapped around her while he brushed damp strands of hair from her cheek. “That’s why she’s our sacrifice. To _save her_ , we have to _give her up_.”

“We can’t return though.”

He knew exactly what her words meant. Erida wasn’t speaking of a triumphant return to Hapes, or a return to family and friends. She was speaking of a return from the dark side. They had buried themselves too deep and passed the point of no return -- they possessed power and that power was eating away at them. They couldn’t be her parents.

He was Caedus and she was Erida.

Slowly stepping backwards and pulling her along with him, he felt the backs of his legs hit the ledge on the far side of the pool, a slightly submerged bench situated in front of specific jets that focused on all the normal tension points. They could be shifted to different areas depending on what species were using the pool, and Caedus had set it to human/humanoid when he used the Force to fiddle with the other controls. Guiding her to the seat, he set her on it and kept his hands on her sides. The water line came up to her collarbone and it only took seconds for the jets to hit her back, which was when he saw her body relax a bit, but her face was still tight, brow furrowed and eyes shut.

Seating himself next to her, he draped his arm across her shoulders and pulled her towards him, his elbow bending and his fingers absently drifting over the top of her head.

“We _can_ though, Erida.”

He didn’t have to see her expression to gauge the level of disbelief she was experiencing -- he could hear it from her one word.

“ _How?_ ”

“It’ll be a long and very slow process, but I think we could do it.”

“If it is that easily possible then why didn’t you--”

“I couldn’t do it without help. And no one bothered to _try_.” She didn’t pull away from him but he could sense the thought in her head before the words sounded from her. “And _don’t_ say I helped turn you just so you could help me _possibly_ get better. I never wanted to _come back._  I had no help, everyone turned against me. I was alone. After realizing _that_ , the thought of _coming back_ was a spice dream.”

Caedus hadn’t realized how much he had raised his voice until he saw her looking up at him, her cheek pressed against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He could feel it radiating from her through the Force, she had realized how little anyone had tried to reach out to him, she had realized how much she herself had ignored what he was becoming, and he could feel that she was truly sorry.

Water lapped at his throat as he lowered himself further down onto the seat, pulling her head into the crook of his neck and feeling her arm slip across his chest. “I am too. I didn’t mean to yell… and… I’m just… I’m sorry for everything.”

Softening against him slightly, Erida felt the same emotion from him through their connection. He tightened his embrace and placed a kiss on her forehead.

They sat together in the pool, in silence, for roughly forty-five minutes after he last spoke, wrapped up in each other's arms, massage jets hitting their backs, and Caedus almost dozing off. He fully snapped awake though, when he felt her pulling herself out of the water, and he found that he couldn’t tear his gaze from her as she rounded the pool, leaving wet footprints on the duracrete.

Diving under the water, Caedus swam across the length of the pool and surfaced as she was drying off near the refresher.

“Hey,” he said, his voice echoing against the high ceilings. When they locked eyes, he continued. “What do you say -- after Maires -- we get some use out of that food processor in the galley and that dining chamber we haven’t touched. Have a nice meal. Talk. Dessert. Plan. The works.”

“Is this the first time you’ve asked me on a date?” Erida had a smirk on her face, and her head tilted sideways as she rubbed a white towel over her hair.

With a tired chuckle, Caedus lowered his chin, keeping his gaze on her face. “Erida…”

“Yes. I accept. That sounds good.”

He could hear the word _helpful_ echoing somewhere in their connection.

“I’m off to bed.”

“Alright, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

As her form moved off down the corridor, Caedus could see the upper part of her left arm pressed against her side to keep the towel held up and the balled up jumpsuit in her right hand, but between those, he could see her back, her shoulder blades, the saturated hair, now dark red because of the water -- simple things to notice, but things he had never thought he would see again. Things Caedus took for granted when he was visiting Hapes.

There had been no official talk of them moving into the private suite, but after their reconciliation before disembarking on Sennex, it had just happened. They were on the same sides of the bed that they slept in when he would visit Hapes. They would fall asleep the same way they did before everything happened, their legs tangled up at their ankles and their skin touching in at least three other places whether it was her head on his chest, his arm draped over her waist, her knee against the back of his thigh, something else or a mixture of everything.

Their connection hadn’t been quiet once since he found her, drained and displeased, in the palace spire on Hapes.

 

* * *

 

 Occasionally, during moments of weakness, he would call her Tenel Ka.

Dinner after Maires happened to be one long, delicious moment of weakness.

The table in the dining area off of the galley was a fair size and could probably sit six comfortably. Caedus took one side of the table as his own and he wasted no time nudging Erida’s leg with his when she sat down. Her sharp gaze lingered on the food spread out between them before straying upwards at his touch.

“How long ‘til Relephon?”

“Last time I passed one of the screens, it said thirteen hours,” Erida said, filling her plate up with a number of the different edible things they had created with the Gourmet Master 500 automated food processor. Some of their experiments came out unexpected, certain ones more palatable than others, but they had created a reasonable alternative to a _gourmet meal_.

Caedus nodded, swallowing a mouthful of wine they still had leftover from Charubah. He was drinking it straight out of the bottle.

There had rarely been a comfortable silence between them since Jacen’s downfall, and Erida made a mental note of this one, using it to let her mind wander as they ate. She found it unsettling how balanced the two of them were together. They had always been balanced as friends, fighters and lovers before Caedus. Tenel Ka was reserved, Jacen wore his emotions on his sleeve -- she taught him to reign it in when the time was right and he brought her feelings to the surface, where it was easier for her to share them with the people she deemed worthy. Jacen always had questions, she was content to either roll with whatever was happening or push against it -- there were no “what ifs” for her.

And then _this_. It was their usual balance on a whole new level. Caedus was wrenching Erida from the depths of Tenel Ka’s psyche and she was gradually coaxing traces of Jacen from the havoc that comprised Caedus. It was something that had been happening without them even realizing it and Erida found that she only started to recognize and dwell on it after their journey to Sennex ended with them sleeping together.

It felt _so right_.

“Your tunic…” Erida trailed off, eyeing him as she nibbled on a piece of honeycrust.

Pale lips curved into a smile as Caedus shifted his attention down to his chest for a moment, turning it to Erida seconds later. The grin suddenly included a suggestive arch of an eyebrow. “What about it?”

“You _know_.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Grabbing the bottle from where it sat next to his empty plate, Caedus leaned back and took a small sip.

With the smallest hint of an upturn in her lips, Erida shook her head and began to poke at the bits of food that still sat on her plate. She was finished eating, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of telling him why she recognized what he was wearing -- he knew she was familiar with it, she didn’t even need their connection in the Force to pick that up.

Rich purple fabric made up the tabard, which sat over a black long-sleeved tunic, the bottom hem of both pieces reaching his thighs. A dark charcoal sash tied around his waist, the wrinkled texture of the fabric easily noticeable, and the sight of that actually sent a flush to her cheeks.

Allana had been offplanet with her grandfather once, during one of Jacen’s scheduled visits and he knew Tenel Ka had been overwhelmed with the Hapan Royal Court, _more_ than normal. He had sent an encoded message before he arrived and all it contained was the name of an establishment down in the capital city of Chume’dan. When she looked it up and found out that it was an inn, she told her retinue and some of the officers that she would be away at Reef Fortress for a day or two to collect her thoughts and recharge.

They asked no questions. They never did.

She had sensed him waiting outside the inn, and when she saw that the only being out front was a tall man in a mask designed to help him breathe, the corner of her lips crept upwards under the generous hood of the cloak she wore. With the mask, and Tenel Ka with her cloak, they suddenly became just two more anonymous visitors to the capital city. Inside, she had waited in the back of the lobby, near a counter full of small holo-ads for things to see and do around the area, and watched Jacen check-in from the shadow of the hood she still had pulled over her.

His modulated voice drifted to her ears loud and clear when he began speaking.

“I was hoping you might have a room available? My wife and I just got here and we are dying to stretch out. Our ship isn’t that big and the bunk is nothing to comm home about -- we’ve been stuck on the thing for days waiting to arrive on Hapes to start our vacation.”

The clerk was genuinely cheerful in response and she and Jacen held a nice, polite conversation as he checked in under names so far off from theirs. She had briefly wondered where he got them from, but was distracted when he called back to her, “Come on, love. We’re on the ninth floor.”

Tenel Ka had stood at the window, mere minutes after they settled into their room, staring fixedly through the window at the capital city spread beyond. She could see the Fountain Palace on the cliffs looming over the town and she felt a mild worry envelop her, the feeling tinged with guilt at the edges. She told them she was at Reef Fortress. What if they needed her and tried to contact her? The only person who knew the code to contact her on her personal comlink was her closest social adviser, but what was she supposed to say to him if something happened? _No, you don’t need to send any guards to the fortress to pick me up, I shall swim back..._?

“What’s going on over there?” The deep voice that called from behind her was the one she was familiar with, the one she was comforted by -- not the modulated one he had through the mask he had been wearing.

“I just…” She threw a weary wave to the window and Jacen picked up on her thoughts instantly.

“Is the city burning down without you? Are all 63 planets rioting?” He had slowly crossed the room and had untied the sash of his tunic on the way, whipping it around her waist and tearing her away from the window. Her back was against his chest in a heartbeat and he had deeply breathed her scent in before exhaling a simple, “No.”

They had spent two days and two nights in that room, alternating between sleeping, eating takeout food, and making love, then watching trashy holo-reality shows while they recovered.

She had woken up one of those mornings -- early afternoon at that point -- naked, except for the sage green sheet that was tangled around her foot and the charcoal sash from his tunic which she loosely held in her hand, under her pillow. Jacen had been sitting up next to her, flipping through channels.

“Morning, Princess.”

The remote for the holoscreen was dropped on the ground as he sunk away from the headboard, sliding easily into the spot on the bed next to her and pulling the sheets over them both. The sash began to slip from her fingers as he grabbed it and pulled it towards him.

“You know this is _mine_ , right?”

Before it was lost completely, her fingers appeared from under the pillow, grabbed the end of the sash and wrapped it around her fist, using it -- and the grip he had on the other end -- to instantly tug him closer to her.

“I _know_.”

He had taken note of the fiery edge in her eyes, and leaned in closer than the sash had brought him, his tongue running over his lips. “It’s past lunchtime. Are you hungry?”

Her response hadn’t been verbal, but her lips were definitely involved as she moved her hand into his hair and pulled him towards her, pressing her lips to his, the end of the sash sliding from her hand and landing on her collarbone. His end floated away from him as well, landing on her stomach. The lazy afternoon sun cast soft rays through the slats in the window and when Jacen pulled his lips from hers he could see slivers of deep orange landing over Tenel Ka’s body, from her neck to her knees. Brandy-brown eyes gave her a once-over, lingering at almost every point, and when he collapsed beside her and gathered her into his arms, the sash was pressed between their bodies until they wore each other out. Tenel Ka had fallen into a light sleep while she was still catching her breath, absently rubbing the wrinkled texture of the fabric that made up the sash in between her fingers. Jacen had dozed off beside her, his cheek pressed against her shoulder and the other end of the sash curling around his fingers.

They hadn’t ended up eating anything until well past dinnertime.

Jacen had done an exceptional job of keeping her mind off of the stress the crown had been giving her in the previous weeks. He had even alleviated some of it, and whether it was with unhealthy but delicious fast food, horrible holodramas, or the way his body could make hers balance on the delicate line between feeling absolute pleasure and passing out from it, she had enjoyed every bit of it.

Caedus could see these memories she was pulling up in her mind, and he could feel the heat that had crept into her body because of them. He could also sense that she was trying to keep them at bay, and attempting to focus on other things.

“Caedus.”

“Hmm?” He had already been watching her, observing her body language while she tried to ignore the recollection of the time they had spent at the inn, so when she looked up again, their eyes met instantly. Caedus could see her trying to keep her lips thinned in a flat and unamused line -- he could also see that she was failing.

“Do you want dessert?”

Leaning forward, he locked his fingers together in front of him, elbows planted on the table. “ _Go on._ ”

“ _Actual_ dessert.” With a smirk, Erida slid out of her seat and approached the food processor once more, poking at the screen. “When you were messing with this that day… there was some frosting or something you managed to make. It was in the top bowl of the stack you created. Blue, fluffy. Can you do that again? That would go good on dew cake, I think -- which I saw in the dessert listings.”

“I could try.”

They sat on chairs they pulled up next to the table the food processor sat on, Caedus fiddling with the menus while Erida tasted things that the processor produced. Some of them were close, but nothing exact.

The two of them were close in proximity, and their heartbeats were steady in each other’s heads when they listened for them, but Erida found their current situation almost as intimate as the times they found themselves eagerly stripping each other’s clothes off, or when he would pull her into his lap and slide his palms along the backs of her thighs--

“Tenel Ka--”

She looked up, distracted from her reverie, her expression and presence in the Force not even registering the name he had called her -- like it was _normal_.

Caedus didn’t draw attention to what he had said, he just pointed to the puff of blue that sat in the bowl he had put in front of her. Dipping a finger in it, he held it out in front of her and she ran her tongue over the fluff, nodding.

“That’s it.” Erida scooted her chair closer to the table and leaned over resting her chin on his shoulder to look at the screen with him. “Now find the dew cake.”

All that was missing was a small, adorable helper to assist in dessert tastings. All that was missing was Allana.

And _Jacen Solo_.

And _Tenel Ka Djo_.

There was a giant oval sofa on the upper deck that faced the huge viewports, covered in shimmering blankets and embroidered pillows, and that was where they ate their dew cake. Erida sat with her legs pulled under her and Caedus sat with his legs stretched out, feet dangling off the front of the sofa (“It looks more like a bed,” he had said, the first time he saw it), the plate of cake perched on a pillow between them.

They had dimmed the lights on the upper deck and were watching the stars that surrounded them outside the ship. They still had eleven hours until they reached Relephon.

“You don’t have to go any deeper if you don’t want to,” Caedus spoke softly, his voice joining the hum of the ship, which was the only other noise present.

Erida turned her head to look at him. The low lights and the diffused glow of the stars and planets around them blanketed his features, hiding the lightened eyes and the sallow cheeks, and bringing out the face of the man who had visited the Queen Mother to ask for help with the Killik crisis -- the man who waltzed back into her life and still felt the same way about her that she did him since they were younger. When his full face came into view, she found herself watching a lock of hair that formed a dark curve across his forehead.

“I can finish off the Red Wake. Get Allana somewhere safe. You don’t… you don’t need to bury yourself in this anger anymore. These emotions. I should have never let it happen in the first place, but…”

She knew what he was thinking. She knew that when he agreed to let her come with him that he could use her negativity to his advantage -- and she could see, and feel, that he was regretting it. Maybe not Caedus as much, but the Jacen that had clung to him did.

“No.” Her voice was firm, jaw set, as she looked back out the viewport, her profile just as regal and elegant as he remembered it the first time he saw her after his five year journey. “I want them out of the consortium, away from the cluster. I am done letting them cause harm to my people -- they have gone too far this time.”

“ _Your Majesty_ …” Caedus whispered.

The sideways glance she threw him was full of sarcastic disapproval and only lasted seconds before she continued. “I want them _gone_ and I want it to send a message to any others who support my grandmother. If this is what we have to do to achieve that, _so be it_.” Lowering her chin to her chest, she let her gaze absently drift up the thin stripe of the sofa she could see between their bodies. “And I’m not letting you get Allana back alone. Leaving you alone was one of the main reasons you... _fell_ so rapidly.”

Caedus reached out, running the backs of his fingers gently over her cheek. “So we’re supporting each other in digging ourselves deeper, getting stronger, taking care of these pirates and sharing our sacrifice.” He turned his hand to cup her jaw with his palm. “Then we’re supporting each other in… hopefully clawing our way back up towards the light.”

She nodded against his hand, a murmur leaving her as she did. “The sacrifice…”

“Allana’s formative years. It doesn’t need to be her altogether, if we can find a way out of this.” Caedus dropped his hand, brushing what was left of her arm he had severed when they were teenagers. “But, we’re going to have to lose her for some time… and if we accept that now...”

He trailed off and she turned to him, instantly drawn to his eyes, which seemed to burn orange with violent intent.

“Then the Red Wake is finished.” Erida said. The orange forks in her own eyes had grown, slowly seeping across the silver and covering it.

They finished the dew cake in silence, Caedus resting his head on her shoulder as he studied the points of light outside the viewport. He could sense that Erida had dozed off and he tilted his head so his lips were near her ear.

“Tenel Ka,” he murmured, not even realizing what he had called her.

She stirred and felt him getting up, her restless gaze following him as he picked up the plate that only had crumbs left on it. Erida rubbed her eyes and shook her head, and when her hand came away from her face, she saw a dark gray strip of fabric dangling in front of her. Long fingers instantly wrapped around it, the familiar feeling of the sash flooding back, and the rest of it dropped into her lap.

“Maybe you should get ready for bed,” Caedus didn’t wait for a response, he just turned on his heel and started towards the repulsorlift, his tunic loose and his hand steadily balancing the plate.

Erida felt a grin tugging at her lips as she slid from the sofa and stood, throwing the sash around her neck and heading for the suite. On the way, she found herself repeating one question in her mind.

_Did he call me Tenel Ka?_


End file.
